Kohei Saito, "Slow Down"에서 | T. Piketty 책 서평

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Kohei Saito, "Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto" (일어 원서 2020; 영역본 2024)

일어 원서 제목은 "인류세의 자본론 Capital in the Anthropocene"

한역판은 "지속 불가능 자본주의"(2021)

 

전에 온라인에서 사이토 고헤이의 "인류세의 자본론" 포스트를 읽고서 여기 영역본이 나오면 살펴보려고 'bookmark'해 두고는 잊고 있었는데 지난주 어쩌다 생각이 나서 마침 책이 도서관에 있길래 빌려왔다. 여기저기 골라 읽어보기 -- 브라우징 browsing --  해보니 책을 다 읽을 필요는 없겠다. (그런데, 'browsing'에 해당하는 적당한 우리말이 없을까?) 책에서 몇 구절만 인용한다.

 

We can also think about this [the commons] using the concept of "social common capital" as advanced by the economist Hirofumi Uzawa. According to Uzawa, certain basic conditions must be satisfied for people to thrive in "rich society." These conditions include aspects of the natural environment such as water and land, social infrastructure like electricity and public transportation, and social systems like healthcare and education. This things should be thought as common goods for all society and thus should be managed and operated socialistically, exempt from market norms and natioanl regulations. It is an idea basically identical to that of the commons.

    The main difference is one of emphasis, with the commons prioritizing shared management by citizens in a democratic, equal way rather than leaving administration up to specialists, as advocated by the concept of social common capital. (pp. 86-7)

 

But whether neoliberalism persists or fade away, primitive accumulation will continue to profit from creating and expanding scarcity. For the 99 percent, this spells the infinite continuation of immiseration and impoverishment. (p. 155)

 

Piketty is generally known as an economist of the liberal left who drew attentions to the growing economic gap and proposed a strong scheme of progressive taxation as a solution. Pikkety's compromise with capitalism was criticized, along with Stiglitz's, as "utopianism' by Žižek. And ideed, if limited to Capital in the Tweny-First Century, this criticism is valid.

    But Piketty's argument changes considerably in his subsequent Capital and Ideology, which came out in 2029.... Near the end of his book, Piketty declares, "The study of history has convinced me that it is possible to transcend today's capitalist system and to outline the contours of a new participatory socialism for the twenty-first century -- a new universalist egalitarian perspective based on social ownership, education, and shared knowledge and power." (pp. 180-1) 

 

Shifting to an economy based on use-value will transform the dynamics of production in major ways. Meaningless work performed just make money will decrease dramatically. Moreover, production will be consciously redistributed to focus on producing only those things truly necessary for the reproduction of society. (p. 191)

 

The pressure capitalist society places upon essential workers is rooted in the extreme estrangement of value from use-value.

     The highest paying jobs right now are in industries like marketing, advertising, consulting, finance, and insurance, which makes these industries appear to be very important despite being almost entirely inessential to reproduction of society. (p. 199)

 

 

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Paul Krugman의

Thomas Piktty, "Capital and Ideology" 서평에서:

 

 

His new book, “Capital and Ideology,” weighs in at more than 1,000 pages.... The problem is that the length of “Capital and Ideology” seems, at least to me, to reflect in part a lack of focus.

 

Eventually, however, Piketty comes down to the meat of the book: his explanation of what caused the recent surge in inequality and what can be done about it.

 

For Piketty, rising inequality is at root a political phenomenon. The social-democratic framework that made Western societies relatively equal for a couple of generations after World War II, he argues, was dismantled, not out of necessity, but because of the rise of a “neo-proprietarian” ideology. Indeed, this is a view shared by many, though not all, economists. These days, attributing inequality mainly to the ineluctable forces of technology and globalization is out of fashion, and there is much more emphasis on factors like the decline of unions, which has a lot to do with political decisions.

 

But why did policy take a hard-right turn? Piketty places much of the blame on center-left parties, which, as he notes, increasingly represent highly educated voters. These more and more elitist parties, he argues, lost interest in policies that helped the disadvantaged, and hence forfeited their support. And his clear implication is that social democracy can be revived by refocusing on populist economic policies, and winning back the working class.

 

Piketty could be right about this, but as far as I can tell, most political scientists would disagree. In the United States, at least, they stress the importance of race and social issues in driving the white working class away from Democrats, and doubt that a renewed focus on equality would bring those voters back. After all, during the Obama years the Affordable Care Act extended health insurance to many disadvantaged voters, while tax rates on top incomes went up substantially. Yet the white working class went heavily for Trump, and stayed Republican in 2018.

 

Maybe the political science consensus is wrong. What I can say with confidence, though, is that until the final 300 pages “Capital and Ideology” doesn’t do much to make the case for Piketty’s views on modern political economy.

 

The bottom line: I really wanted to like “Capital and Ideology,” but have to acknowledge that it’s something of a letdown. There are interesting ideas and analyses scattered through the book, but they get lost in the sheer volume of dubiously related material. In the end, I’m not even sure what the book’s message is. That can’t be a good thing.