I have over enthusiastically returned to the book on Sunday morning 6 am itself. Let's see how the reading goes :-)
Took 40 minutes to read....will put down the blog in another 20 minutes later in the day.
Pages 10-20
Piketty discusses collective learning and social sciences. Each group has its own history and therefore its own learning style and basis. It is easy for the social scientist to show the complexity involved in any of the studies and therefore not take a stance. Piketty says he will take a stand and provide justifications. After all aim of the book is to evolve an ideology towards more equality.
He states that progress has definitely been there if we look at life expectancy which implies health and literacy levels. Both has skyrocketed in the last three centuries. Global population as well as output have increased. However, using averages of life length, infant mortality and literacy are misleading since inequality has also drastically increased.
There have been revolutions and violent events that meant to reset the inequality and then new ideologies were created to justify the new inequalities.
In his previous book, he was too reliant on the Western rich world data, but now he has access to more data from India, Brazil and Africa, so his comparative studies have improved. He cites literature from different eras to be great pointers to the social inequality. Remember that his argument is that inequality is neither economic not technological, but that its political and ideological.
Best quote: Economics and History are too important to be left to economists and historians. Citizens should gather more knowledge in these spheres to make informed opinions and participate in the society.
Took 40 minutes to read....will put down the blog in another 20 minutes later in the day.
Pages 10-20
Piketty discusses collective learning and social sciences. Each group has its own history and therefore its own learning style and basis. It is easy for the social scientist to show the complexity involved in any of the studies and therefore not take a stance. Piketty says he will take a stand and provide justifications. After all aim of the book is to evolve an ideology towards more equality.
He states that progress has definitely been there if we look at life expectancy which implies health and literacy levels. Both has skyrocketed in the last three centuries. Global population as well as output have increased. However, using averages of life length, infant mortality and literacy are misleading since inequality has also drastically increased.
There have been revolutions and violent events that meant to reset the inequality and then new ideologies were created to justify the new inequalities.
In his previous book, he was too reliant on the Western rich world data, but now he has access to more data from India, Brazil and Africa, so his comparative studies have improved. He cites literature from different eras to be great pointers to the social inequality. Remember that his argument is that inequality is neither economic not technological, but that its political and ideological.
Best quote: Economics and History are too important to be left to economists and historians. Citizens should gather more knowledge in these spheres to make informed opinions and participate in the society.
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