Reforming Europe: Thomas Piketty meets Pablo Iglesias Juncture Online (IPPR), 16 Feb 2015
Pablo Iglesias: When I was reading the introduction of your book, my attention was caught by the way you described your experience in the United States. You said you wanted to return to Europe immediately. You were criticising the deification of economists in the US and showcasing your admiration for Pierre Bourdieu and Fernand Braudel. Thomas Piketty: I really enjoyed my stay in the US, but I couldn't wait to get back to France, to get closer to historical research, especially economic and social. Overall, I see myself as a researcher in social science rather than as an economist. I think that the line between economics, history, sociology and political science is thinner than what economists sometimes tend to affirm. It is tempting for economists to have people believe that they created a separate science, too scientific for the rest of the world to understand. But of course this is a big joke, which has done a lot of harm. I believe we need a modest approach to economics, and that we shouldn't let economists keep economic questions to themselves. In my work, I try to conduct research on the history of income and assets, and I don’t believe it’s possible to tackle this issue without an economic, social, political and cultural approach. This includes the representations people have of inequalities, which is why in my book I also mention representations in literature. I believe it is crucial not to leave these questions for the economists, as they are far too important. PI: What you are saying is very interesting, as sometimes economists introduce themselves more or less as representatives of a natural science; as if they were putting on a lab coat and stepping away from social sciences. Moving on to your recent rejection of the Legion of Honour, what in your opinion should be the role of intellectuals today? TP: We do not write books for those who govern, we do not write books for governments. We do not write books seeking official honours. We write books for anyone who reads books, and above all I try to contribute to the democratisation of economic and social knowledge. I trust the power of books, of ideas. I believe in a general democratisation of society and of economy. This can enable citizens to take up issues that are not technical. Public funding, income, assets, interest rates, salaries ... these questions are for everyone. I'm trying to democratise this knowledge so that every citizen can be more active and take part in collective deliberation. I believe this shows more political commitment than going to official receptions. Political leaders often implement what they believe to be the prevailing opinion. Therefore, the most important thing for me is to help in transforming this opinion. PI: You are not a Marxist economist. You say it very clearly when you describe your experience of the fall of the Berlin wall as a moment of joy as much as an observation of the failure of real socialist experiences. In that light, then, why is your book called Capital in the Twenty First Century, when it's inevitable that a comparison will be drawn between the work of Marx and any new 'Capital' in the 21st century? TP: I was born in 1971, so I was 18 years old in 1989. I became an adult while listening to the radio, in autumn 1989, and I remember it very well: the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of communist regimes in eastern Europe. I was born too late to be tempted by communism, at least in its eastern European version, which was catastrophic for the economy and above all for individual freedoms. So I never had this temptation. I am, in a way, a member of the first post-cold war generation. Some people still live in the cold war and that's a problem – but it's their problem. I think it's easier for my generation to reopen questions about inequalities in capitalism, for example, without the burden of the cold war, where people were always suspected to be supporters of ‘the other model’. The book's title is Capital in the Twenty First Century because I'm trying to return the issue of wealth distribution to the centre of political economy. Authors from the 19th century, such as Ricardo and Marx, put the question of distribution at the core of political economy. However, I'm trying to do it in a different way, because Marx's book was published in 1867 and mine in 2014. Capital in the Twenty First Century includes four other words besides Capital. This shows I'm trying to put capital into history, to study it as a historical object, to examine the transformation of capital and of different types of property. We went from land ownership to real estate and financial properties, intangible property rights, patents. However, the dynamics of capital accumulation haven’t changed as much as we tend to believe. In the first half of the 20th century, a series of violent shocks – the first world war, the Bolshevik revolution, the Great Depression, the second world war – enabled a reduction of inequalities in capitalist countries. In the wake of these shocks, western elites finally gave in to the kind of social and tax reforms they had denied prior 1914. Only these institutional changes allowed a certain reduction in inequalities. Since the Anglo-American conservative revolutions, with Thatcher and Reagan, and even more since the fall of the Berlin wall, we have entered an era of infinite faith in a self-regulating market. The whole movement of financial deregulation has contributed tremendously to higher inequalities, which in some instances have returned to pre-1914 levels. This historical perspective on inequalities in capitalism helps us to understand that there is never anything natural in changing economic situations. These evolutions depend on institutions, laws, political and legal systems. In the twentieth century, it was political shocks that were the first to alter the nature of capitalism, in one way or another. This historical perspective is crucial to conceiving of a new way to regulate today's global, patrimonial capitalism. [...] full: http://www.ippr.org/juncture/reforming-europe-thomas-piketty-meets-pablo-iglesias Exclusive to Juncture, we present an edited translation of a recent interview between bestselling author Thomas Piketty and Pablo Iglesias, leader of the Spanish political party Podemos, originally broadcast on Otra Vuelta de Tuerka (‘Another Turn of the Screw’). In this wide-ranging interview, Piketty and Iglesias discuss: part 1: an historical perspective on economic and social change part 2: achieving democratic reform of the EU part 3: Podemos, Spain's political and economic circumstances, and the future of left-wing parties in Europe. Watch the original interview (in Spanish and French, with Spanish subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy03AkeYsDo _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
