Incisive commentary on the financial meltdown and its aftermath, from the author of the bestselling global phenomenon Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty's work has proved that without meaningful regulation, capitalist economies will concentrate wealth in an ever smaller number of hands. Unfettered markets lead to increasing inequality. Armed with this knowledge, how can democratic societies fend off a new aristocracy? For years, Piketty has wrestled with this issue in the pages of Libération, one of France's leading news magazines. His monthly column pierces the surface of current events to reveal the economic forces underneath. Why Save the Bankers? brings together selections from eight years of these columns, now translated and annotated, beginning with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, and the title essay's provocative challenge. Along the way, Piketty weighs successes and failures of the Obama...

“The most important economics book of the year―and maybe of the decade.” —Paul Krugman, New York Times, on Capital in the Twenty-First Century A bestselling economist’s history of inequality and guide to a more just, sustainable world, distilled into an engaging and accessible pocket-sized text.In this unique work, Thomas Piketty presents a synthesis of his historical and comparative research on inequality. He challenges the idea that there could be natural inequalities and shows that the march toward equality has always depended on political and social struggles, addressing diverse topics such as: education, inheritance, the climate crisis, the taxation of wealth, and gender disparities. Adapted from Piketty’s 2022 lecture at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Nature, Culture, and Inequality makes his important argument...