Pikety's Capital In The Twenty-First Century

Along with globalization market forces has had the greatest impact on income equalities in the United Sates. Thomas Piketty says that “by definition, in all societies, income inequality is the result of adding up these two components: inequality of income from labor and inequality of income from capital. The more unequally distributed each of these two components is, the greater the total inequality ... [a] decisive factor is the relation between these two dimensions of inequality: to what extent do individuals with high income from labor also enjoy high income from capital? Technically speaking, this relation is a statistical correlation, and the greater the correlation, the greater the total inequality, all other things being equal” (Piketty & Goldhammer, 2014, p. 242). In the U.S. the correlation between the two dimensions has become so astonishing that “President Obama called economic inequality “the defining challenge of our time.” But while Americans acknowledge that the gap between the rich and poor has widened over the last decade, very few see it as a serious issue. Just five percent of Americans think that inequality is a major problem in need of attention” (Fitz,

In today’s capitalist economy, where economic transactions and business in general is centered on self-interest, there is a natural tendency for some people to make more than others. That is the basis for the “American Dream,” where people, if they worked hard, could make money proportional to their effort. However, what happens when this natural occurrence grows disproportional in its allocation of wealth within a society? The resulting issue becomes income inequality. Where a small portion of the population, own the majority of the wealth and the majority of the population own only a fraction of what the rich own. This prominent issue has always been the subject of social tension

“to a mere money relation,” (Marx and Engels [1848] 2013:35]. Marx, saw the tear down of the old as the only way for the bourgeoisie to survive. Periodically, a crisis occurred where productive forces threatened their conditions and bourgeoisie would have to bring in new productive forces and destroy the old. Marx believed that these changes to technology and productive capacity were the main influence on how society and the economy were organized. The bourgeoisie had to push for the modern world to quickly and continually develop to protect capitalists’ monopolies. However, constant development caused continual disturbances of social conditions by breaking down stable aspects of human life. Capitalist used their power to push the world to advance so that they could prosper with no concerns to the possible effects on the economy, which would have been most detrimental to the proletariat. For Marx, this showed that capitalists’ self-interest pushed economic progress, which led to societal progress but also risked crisis. Capitalism not only affected society through the creation and separation of social classes but also in influencing societal progress and social relations.

In his hypothesis, Karl Marx foresaw income inequality in a capitalistic as a major problem that would lead to an economic evolution. The main reason he foresaw an evolution was due to the recurrent nature of income

At the root of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ highly touted (and shouted) policies, from free college to an increase in the minimum wage, is the issue of inequality in America. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Sanders has seen great success on his message of fixing inequality in the United States, the gap between the wealthy and poor has been growing at an alarming rate. The focus tends to be on income inequality rather than wealth inequality. According to Google Trends, searches for “Income Inequality” significantly outnumber searches for “Wealth Inequality”, and have consistently done so since 2004 (Web Search Interests). Despite this, wealth inequality is a far greater problem than income inequality. Income inequality

The Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) had brought about significant changes in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, transportation and technology and subsequently established an era of unprecedented economic growth in capitalist economies. It was within this era that Karl Marx had observed the deprivation and inequality experienced by men of the proletariat, the working class, who had laboured excessively for hours under inhumane conditions to earn a minimum wage while the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, reaped the benefits. For Marx it was this fundamental inequality within the social and economic hierarchy that had enabled capitalist societies to function. While Marx’s theories, in many instances have been falsified and predictions

Karl Marx, in the Capital, developed his critique of capitalism by analyzing its characteristics and its development throughout history. The critique contains Marx’s most developed economic analysis and philosophical insight. Although it was written in 1850s, its values still serve an important purpose in the globalized world and maintains extremely relevant in the twenty-first century.

Marx's ideas on labor value are very much alive for many organizations working for social change. In addition, it is apparent that the gap between the rich and poor is widening on a consistent basis. According to Marx, the course of human history takes a very specific form which is class struggle. The engine of change in history is class opposition. Historical epochs are defined by the relationship between different classes at different points in time. It is this model that Marx fleshes out in his account of feudalism's passing in favor of bourgeois capitalism and his prognostication of bourgeois capitalism's passing in favor of proletarian rule. These changes are not the reliant results of random social, economic, and political events; each follows the other in predictable succession. Marx responds to a lot of criticism from an imagined bourgeois interlocutor. He considers the charge that by wishing to abolish private property, the communist is destroying the "ground work of all personal freedom, activity, and independence". Marx responds by saying that wage labor does not properly create any property for the laborer. It only creates capital, a property which works only to augment the exploitation of the worker. This property, this capital, is based on class antagonism. Having linked private property to class hostility, Marx

Karl Marx believed societies evolved through different stages: feudalism, capitalism, and socialism. He suspected social change to be strongly linked with the economy; class struggle caused by 19th century capitalism. With the decline of the aristocracy and the industrial revolution Marx believed more opportunities would be available for the poor, but that was not the case, instead the aristocracy were "replaced ' ' by capitalists. The wealthy

Income inequality is a phenomenon that is undeniably real in our current world, and more specifically, the present United States. Canon describes how the gap between the elite and the poor has been consistently growing for many years and continues to widen (189). Whether the differences between the top and the bottom are a threat to current society is another story. Does income inequality undermine a democracy? Ray Williams argues that societies are strongest when they have a higher rate of equality while George Will challenges that inequality is the very basis of what make democratic processes. A. Barton Hinkle takes a Libertarian approach to the idea that inequality is threatening to democracy and how it can be fixed. Some threats that each article addressed were economic impacts, civility, and fairness. Overall, there is a definite need to evaluate whether the United States democracy is being threatened due to the continuous rise of the elites and the fall of the working class.

Thus, the economic system controls all aspects of human life, and these lives are left to revolve around the means of production. Marx believed the system contained the seeds of it’s own destruction in that capitalists are constantly competing to produce goods more efficiently and cheaper. When wages are cut so low that the laboring class is unable to purchase the goods produced there will be an economic crisis. Then when conditions are bad enough the oppressed will rise up against the owners and capitalism will have destroyed itself.

The specialised critique of capitalism found in the Communist Manifesto (written by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels), provides a basis for the analysis and critique of the capitalist system. Marx and Engels wrote about economical in relation to the means or mode of production, ideology, alienation and most fundamentally, class relations (particularly between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat). Collectively, these two men created the theory of Marxism. There are multiple critiques of Marxism that attack the fundamental tenants of their argument. Several historical events have fueled such criticisms, such as the fall of the Soviet Union, where Marxism was significantly invalidated and condemned. On the flip side, Marxism has been widely supported in times of capitalist hardships. What viewpoint a person will hold towards Marxism is largely dependable on the economical environment in which they live. Further, it is also important to remember that Marx and Engels lived in a very different era than today’s society, and the concept of capitalism may have arguably changed quite a lot over time. Therefore, the principles found in the Manifesto may often have to be refurnished and reapplied to fit different economic environments.

Karl Marx is the first in a series of 19th and 20th century theorists who started the call for an empirical approach to social science. Theorizing about the rise of modernity accompanied by the decline in traditional societies and advocating for a change in the means of production in order to enable social justice. Marx’s theories on modernity reveals his beliefs of modern society as being influenced by the advancement of productive forces of modern industry and the relationships of production between the capitalist and the wage laborers. The concept of modernity refers to a post-feudal historical period that is characterized by the move away from feudalism and toward capitalism. Modernity focuses on the affects that the rise of capitalism has had on social relations, and notes Karl Marx and Max Weber as influential theorists commenting on this. The quick advancement of major innovations after the Enlightenment period known as modernity stood in stark contrast to the incremental development of even the most complex pre-modern societies, which saw productive forces developing at a much slower pace, over hundreds or thousands of years as compared to modern times, with swift growth and change. This alarming contrast fascinated Marx who traced the spawning of modern capitalism in the Communist Manifesto, citing this record speed as the heat which generated the creation of the global division of labor and a greater variety of productive forces than anytime before. Ultimately,

Marx came to his conclusion through tracing the proletariat and bourgeoisie roots to the fall of the feudal system. In his book The Communist Manifesto he says that it was here that he saw the bourgeoisie coming to power while the proletariat fell on the economic ladder. While he admits that there has always been a class division in society, it has become increasingly obvious to detect. Due to the inventions of the steam engine and the assembly line, the bourgeoisie became more selective while the proletariat grew in size and started forming unions. He began to notice that the bourgeoisie were beginning to come to power while the proletariat started to grow in numbers. Marx believed that there were multiple reasons that led the bourgeoisie to create their own destruction. First, the bourgeoisie could not help but oppress the proletariats and stand by as they began to sink lower and lower into society, thus increasing the chance of a proletariat uprising. Second, Marx writes, “The advance of industry…replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition…due to association” (Marx p. 21). Marx believed that human reasoning would ultimately prevail and that the proletariats would eventually rise up and cast out the bourgeoisie. Human intuition,

Prevalent flaws within most modern democracies are evident in their social and economic systems. One such problem, in a system that advocates freedom to do whatever you please, is the consequential wealth disparity (Wong, Oct. 24 lecture, tutorial). Aristotle once said that, “democracy is the form of government in which… the free are the many and the rich are the few”. This highlights a paradox of democracy in that it attempts to be equal to all, yet often the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, and an increasing wealth divide will influence governance. Constant writes (pg. 12), “wealth is a power more readily available at any moment… more