Abstract
Is Thomas Piketty the world's most famous economic historian? A superstar enemy of plutocratic capitalism who wrote a pathbreaking bestseller, Capital in the 21st Century? Or simply a debonair and generous French intellectual happy to talk redistributive justice? Join John and Adaner Usmani (star of RTB's episode 44: Racism as idea, Racism as Power Relation) to find out. Why did we invite him? John thinks nobody is better than Piketty at mapping and explaining the nature and origin of the glaring and growing inequality that everywhere defines wealth distribution in the 21st century-both between societies and within them. His recent magnum opus, Capital and Ideology asks what sorts of stories societies (and individuals within those societies) tell themselves so as to tolerate such inequality-and the poverty and misery it produces. Or even to see that inequality as part of the natural order of things. Why did he accept our invitation? A mystery, but who are we to look a gift economist in the mouth?