A Brief History of Equality

Tommy never misses

I'm very glad that Piketty wrote this more accessible update to his material. His other books felt a little intimidating but this was readable while still containing so many important ideas. Even though some of the examples and vocabulary still went over my head, I found myself highlighting a paragraph every few pages.I read this after [b:The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism 1237300 The Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Naomi Klein https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442590618l/1237300.SY75.jpg 2826418], which had made me feel somewhat pessimistic about the future and at a loss for what a functional globalized society could look like. Klein's book did a lot to point out the flaws in Friedman's economic model but didn't provide as much of an answer about what might be better. At times, it paints a pretty grim picture of humanity.Piketty's ideas seemed to perfectly fill the gap - he is generally optimistic about our capacity to move towards equality over time, while still being completely realistic about how much work it requires to do so. He has many example of concrete policies that could be implemented to increase equality.If anything, I wish it had felt more actionable, but I'll admit this is probably hard to do. I did appreciate that he mentioned whenever a specific government was trying to implement something similar to what he was describing.To me, this feels like required reading for anyone who is losing hope in humanity's ability to “play nice”, making a compelling argument that in helping each other and working together, we can all benefit.