Inequality and history

We summarize the scope and argument of Piketty’s Capital and Ideology drawing out three elements that are undeveloped in his analysis: global history, technology and ideology. It is suggested that limited attention to these three topics distorts the narrative of the book and the corresponding policy implications. We then take a subject that Piketty rightly examines in depth: the massive use of raciallybased chattel slavery by Western economies over three centuries or so in the Americas, its ideological underpinnings, and its long term impact on socio-economic inequality. By closer examination of the role of slavery in altering the nature and trajectory of the British economy of the eighteenth century, and its path thereafter, the purpose here is to draw out a material and structural extension of Piketty’s argument about the historical legacy of slavery in the West.