Constructing a big history of inequality

Abstract

In Capital and Ideology, Thomas Piketty takes a highly structured approach to the history of inequality in human societies. Much depends on this approach, notably the book's temporal and geographical ambitions and its bold and provocative claims, but by exploring how Piketty constructs his ‘big history’ of inequality regimes we can see there is loss as well as gain. Focussing on the history of early modern Europe, which features prominently in Piketty's book, I suggest that our grasp of movement and, relatedly, of change and continuity in inequality regimes, suffers in his account. There is ample scope, therefore, for historians to enhance our understanding of the history of the ideologies and institutions from which Piketty's inequality regimes are constituted. Enriching the historical study of inequality regimes that Piketty proposes in Capital and Ideology might be seen as a polite form of interdisciplinary exchange but I suggest that a more 'muscular' interdisciplinary engagement around his book may be more promising still. Especially interesting in this regard would be efforts to both challenge the explanatory analysis that Piketty develops in Capital and Ideology and to develop microscopic analyses of inequality alongside the macroscopic approach that Piketty employs.