Capital in the Twenty-First Century

The defining modern work on inequality, built on centuries of records rather than theory. Piketty's central finding is uncomfortable and durable: that wealth, left to itself, tends to concentrate faster than economies grow, so that inherited fortune outruns earned income and the gap widens on its own. Whatever one makes of his remedies, he turned inequality from a matter of opinion into a measurable historical force. Included where the shelf reaches into economics, because no honest economics shelf can skip it.

A French economist whose data-driven study of inequality became one of the most discussed economics books of the century. Capital in the Twenty-First Century assembles centuries of records to argue that wealth, left alone, tends to concentrate faster than economies grow, with consequences for democratic equality. He writes inequality as a measurable historical force rather than a matter of opinion.