Capital and Ideology

by Thomas Piketty

To simplify, we can say that every inequality regime, every inegalitarian ideology, rests on both a theory of borders and a theory of property.

On the Slow Diffusion of German and Nordic Co-Management To recapitulate: In the Germanic and Nordic countries (notably Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway) worker representatives fill between a third and a half of the seats on the boards of directors of the largest firms whether or not they own any part of the firm’s capital. In Germany, which led the way on these matters, this system has been in place since the early 1950s. Despite the widely acknowledged success of the German and Nordic social and industrial model, which is noted for producing a high standard of living, high productivity, and moderate inequality, other countries until recently had not followed suit. In the United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Canada, and Australia, private firms continue to be governed by immutable corporate bylaws: in all these countries, a general assembly of shareholders continues to elect the entire board of directors according to the principle “one share, one vote,” with no representation for employees (except in a few cases that have a merely consultative representation, without voting rights). Things began to change slightly in 2013, when France passed a law requiring firms with more than 5,000 employees to set aside one board seat out of twelve for a worker representative. This new French rule was nevertheless quite limited compared to the German and Nordic systems (limited in terms of both the number of worker representatives and the scope of fi...

What is certain in any case is that the confrontation of conservative nationalists with conservative liberals, which we also see in Hungary and other East European countries, has little in common with the “traditional” left-right conflict between social democrats and conservatives that defined politics in Western Europe and the United States during much of the twentieth century. In Part Four I will delve into these political-ideological transformations in greater detail. I see them as essential for understanding the

evolution of inequality and the possibility of reconstituting an egalitarian and redistributive coalition in the future. At this stage, note that the clash between conservative liberals and conservative nationalists is not simply a curiosity of postcommunist Eastern Europe. It is one of the possible trajectories toward which political conflict may move in many Western democracies, as recent developments in France, Italy, and the United States suggest. Broadly speaking, it is one of the forms that ideological conflict may take in societies that take the reduction of socioeconomic inequalities off the table while opening up the space for identitarian conflict. The only way to overcome such contradictions is to work toward a novel internationalist political platform to achieve greater equality.

To review, over the past few decades the electoral left has turned into the Brahmin left, which is itself increasingly divided between a pro-market (center-left) faction and a more radical pro-redistribution faction (some would say that it is simply less right-wing). Meanwhile, the electoral right has split into a pro-market center-right and a nativist and nationalist right. In the end, it is clear that the whole system of “classist” cleavages, together with the left-right political structure of the period 1950–1980, has gradually broken down. Recomposition is currently under way. As we will soon discover by looking at countries other than France, this redefinition of the dimensions of political conflict can take

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