Unexpected brilliant

Downloaded by mistake, and have admit that was one the best mistake ever made.
Gives an incredible insight of the historical perspective of the global wealth.

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6 people found this helpful

Long but enlightening

This epic work is a very thorough analysis of the fundamentals of capitalism: who owns what, and who owned what in the past: in particular, the economics of inequality. It is a solid introduction to many of the biggest ideas in the modern world surrounding how wealth functions, and raises significant questions - how should we aim to distribute wealth? Who should pay more or less tax? Does the current system 'work'?

The first 7 or 8 hours may come across as very dry for the amateur listener (such as myself - I have no formal economics training). Reams and reams of statistics are presented about abstract concepts such as the capital-income ratio. I found this section of the book arduous, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

Once that is out the way, the next 6 or so hours are about income inequality, and again hundreds of detailed statistics are provided from many different countries. It is here that the book becomes more thought provoking, and the reasoning behind the first section makes sense, to lay the groundwork and add real rigor/legitimacy to the arguments.

The third part is by far the most interesting and, I guess, the least 'scientific'. Piketty provides a fascinating array of opinions and analyses of all the thousands of facts he has just laid out, about the structure of the world economy, what major problems of the modern world are and how they can be fixed. In particular, he suggests in-depth solutions to the European debt crisis, the rapidly accelerating income inequality in the West, and the rise of inequality since the 1980s.

Overall, I feel much more enlightened about economics, and it has modified some of my political ideas as a result. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of the facts surrounding income, inequality, capital and finance, this is an excellent introduction.

It has aged reasonably well since 2013. The only section which is completely wrong is that Piketty suggests oil-producing states may eventually run the world, however this seems increasingly unlikely given the insanely rapid switch towards alternative sources of energy.

It is also undoubtedly a little moralising towards the end, which I think is justified, but other listeners may disagree.

I gave it 4/5 because for me, as an amateur, it got boring at times in the first part, but was very much worth it overall.

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Very long

The material is great, but prepare to have a screen near you. Lots of graphs and illustrations.

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Better to read the book with it.

Very useful to listen to bat work on conjunction with reading the book at home.

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Interesting, but Audible make the data hard

Picks up towards the end when the author gets to their conclusions, but the slog through data isn't helped by the way they've narrated it. Audible should have added or improved here with a general description of the numbers and/or graph.

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A great book, not very well translated

A "must listen"/read.
Regrettably not very well translated from French.
At times it feel as if Google translate was used. Too many French idioms and expressions were translated literally instead of using equivalent English expressions, while others were not translated at all when they could have been.
The translator also didn't bother introducing variety in his choice of words which makes the text sound repetitive.
The narrator lacks charisma but part of that is probably due to the dry nature of the book and the sub-par translation.

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hard to follow

They are citing a lot for figures that are in the book, so ot is hard to follow when you are only listening. Also it was too technical for me since I'm not an economist.

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The most talked about non-fiction book this year

This is a mega-work - both in length and impact. The most detailed study of the distribution of wealth for decades - a monumental work of scholarship - and a powerful polemic for the effective global taxation of wealth. It's not the ideal Audible Book because you need to print off loads of PDF charts to really make sense of it, which, since I was listening to it at the gym, was a bit of a problem. Also because it has provoked a lot of debate, including over the accuracy of some of the data, you may prefer to spend your time tuning into the debate on-line; unless you are a professional economist, in which case you will have already read it and have an annotated hard-back copy on your shelf. I committed to the twenty plus hours of listening and learnt a lot. I especially like some of the incidental historical detail and the sections where he goes off-piste and gives us his views on the Euro crisis. I was convinced by both the analysis and the polemic. He is open enough to put all his data on-line. The critique by the FT's economics editor casts doubt on some of it, but Piketty's response is strong, and the fundamental argument that inequality is growing because the returns to capital are growing at a faster rate than the standard of living of the majority of the population survives intact.

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48 people found this helpful

Political economy masterpiece

What a monumental book this was. It is particularly long and at some points it goes to great lengths to make a point. I felt that some parts in the middle could be condensed. The content is too quality and I didn’t find it difficult at all to listen because of the math and the references to diagrams as other readers pointed out. The points are well made without the need for charts and the math is so elementary that a primary school student won’t have trouble following. The last part of the book where he makes policy recommendations was fascinating. I looked forward to it throughout the entire book and I was not disappointed. A truly magnificent piece of work but be prepared, it’s long!

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Fascinating

most of it made a lot of sense. Some of it went right over my head. It is highly technical and it is difficult to follow as an audio book when you are on the move and you don't have access to the graphs.

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