좋은 읽을 거리: Capital in the 21C

 

Introduction and Conclusion,

Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014; 불어 원서 2013)

한역본: 토마 피케티 지음, 장경덕 외 옮김, "21세기 자본"(2014)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

각각 35페이지와 7페이지인 서론과 결론 부분이 꽤 재밌다. 읽다 보면 그래서

스타벅스에서도 들어갈 때 생각보다 한참을 더 있다가 나오게 된다. 그 재미는,

아래에 인용한 구절들에서도 느낄 수 있을 텐데, 흥미있는 내용과 그것을 담은

군더더기 없는 명문에서 오는 것 같다. '에세이* 클럽' 같은 모임에서의 좋은

읽을 거리가 되지 않을까.

 

이 책은 서론과 결론만 또는 서론의 80 퍼센트만 읽기로 하는 것도 어떤

이들에게는 충분히 좋은 선택이거나 좋은 선택일 거라는 생각이다.

 

너무 많이 인용한 것 같다. 저작권이 신경쓰인다. 어쩌면 서너 구절만 남겨야

할지 모르겠다. 어쨌든 좀 줄여야겠다.

 

 

The distribution of wealth is one of today's most widely discussed

and controversial issues. But what do we really know about its

evolution over the long term? Do the dynamics of private capital

accumulation inevitably lead to the concentration of wealth in ever

fewer hands, as Karl Marx believed in the nineteenth century? Or

do the balancing forces of growth, competition, and technological

progress lead in later stages of development to reduced inequality

and greater harmony among the classes, as Simon Kuznets

thought in the twentieth century? What do we really know about

how wealth and income have evolved since the eighteenth

century, and what lessons can we derive from that knowledge for

the century now under way? ('Introduction'의 첫 구절, p 1)

 

These are the questions I attempt to answer in this book. Let me

say at once that the answers contained herein are imperfect and

incomplete. But they are based on much more extensive

historical and comparative data than were available to previous

researchers, ... as well as on a new theoretical framework that

affords a deep understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have

made it possible to avoid the Marxist apocalypse but have not

modified the deep structures of capital and inequality -- or in

any case not as much as one might have imagined in the

optimistic decades following World War II. When the rate of return

on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as

it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again

in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary

and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the

meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.

There are nevertheless ways democracy can regain control

over capitalism and ensure that the general interest takes

precedence over private interests, while preserving economic

openness and avoiding protective and nationalistic reactions.

The policy recommendations I propose later in this book tend

in this direction. (p 1)

 

[I]t would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of the

intuitive knowledge that everyone acquires about contemporary

wealth and income levels ... Indeed the novels of Jane Austen

and Honore de Balzac paint striking portraits of the distribution

of wealth in Britain and France between 1790 and 1830. (p 2)

 

Marx based his work on an analysis of the internal logical

contradictions of the capitalist system. ... In fact, his principal

conclusion was what one might call "the principle of infinite

accumulation," that is the inexorable tendency for capital to

accumulate and become concentrated in ever fewer hands, with

no natural limit to the process. (p 9)

 

The sharp reduction in income inequality that we observe in

almost all the rich countries between 1914 and 1945 was due

above all to the world wars and the violent economic and

political shocks they entailed (especially for people with large

fortunes). (p15)

 

What are the major conclusions to which these novel historical

sources have led me? The first is that one should be wary of

any economic determinism in regard to inequalities of wealth

and income. The history of the distribution of wealth has always

been deeply political, and can not be reduced to purely

economic mechanisms. (p 20)

 

The second conclusion, which is the heart of the book, is that

the dynamics of wealth distribution reveal powerful mechanisms

pushing alternately toward convergence and divergence.

Furthermore, there is no natural, spontaneous process to

prevent destabilizing inegalitarian forces from prevailing

permanently. (p 21)

 

This fundamental inequality ... r > g  (where r stands for the

average annual rate of return on capital, including profits,

dividends, interest, rents, and other income from capital,

expressed as a percentage of its total value, and g stands for

the rate of growth of the economy, that is the annual increase in

income or output), will play a crucial role ... (p25)

 

When the rate of return on capital significantly exceeds the

growth rate of the economy ... then it logically follows that

inherited wealth grows faster than output and income. ... Under

such conditions, it is almost inevitable that inherited wealth will

dominate wealth amassed from a lifetime's labor by a wide margin,

and the concentration of capital will attain extremely high levels

-- levels potentially incompatible with the meritocratic values and

principles of social justice fundamental to modern democratic

societies. (p26)

 

[I]t is important to note that the fundamental r > g inequality, the

main force of divergence in my theory, has nothing to do with

any market imperfection. Quite the contrary: the more perfect the

capital market ... the more likely r is to be greater than g. It is

possible to imagine public institutions and policies that would

counter the effects of this implacable logic: for instance, a

progressive global tax on capital. But establishing such

institutions and policies would require a considerable degree of

international coordination. (p 27)

 

If we are to progress in our understanding of the historical

dynamics of the wealth distribution and the structure of social

classes, we must obviously take a pragmatic approach and

avail ourselves of the methods of historians, sociologists, and

political scientists as well as economists. (p 33)

 

Growth can of course be encouraged by investing in education,

knowledge, and nonpolluting technologies. But none of these

will raise the growth rate to 4 or 5 percent a year. (p 572)

 

With an average return on capital of 4-5 percent, it is therefore

likely that r > g will again become the norm in the twenty-first

century as it had been throughout history until the eve of World

War I. In the twentieth century, it took two world wars to wipe

away the past and significantly reduce the return on capital

(p 572)

 

The right solution is a progressive annual tax on capital. This

will make it possible to avoid an endless inegalitarian spiral

while preserving competition and incentives for new instances

of primitive accumulation. (p 572)

 

The difficulty is that this solution, the progressive tax on capital,

requires a high level of international cooperation and regional

political integration. (p 573)

 

I see economics as a subdiscipline of the social sciences,

alongside history, sociology, anthropology, and political

science. (p 573)

 

(* 수필은 에세이이지만 에세이는 수필이 아닌 경우가 많다. 'Essay'의

번역어로 뭐가 좋을까? )