NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ1107774
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-5692
EISSN: N/A
Piketty, Capital and Education: A Solution to, or Problem in, Rising Social Inequalities?
Robertson, Susan Lee
British Journal of Sociology of Education, v37 n6 p823-835 2016
When Piketty's book "Capital in the Twenty-first Century" was released in 2014, it became an overnight success. Piketty focused on the concentration of wealth in a tiny social elite, and showed that their wealth had increased following the financial crisis in 2008. Yet the value of Piketty's book offers something more than this for social scientists concerned with social inequalities. His work on a large data-set of long-run income and wealth statistics illustrates that the assumptions and models which have guided the work of neoclassical economists are flawed, but that societal arrangements matter. Yet despite this insight, Piketty's solution to the problem of inequality is to argue that "… the best way to reduce inequalities with respect to labor … is to invest in education". In this article I argue that there are major problems with this proposed solution and outline three lacunae that need to be addressed.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A