Inequality, growth, and the redistribution of capital: assessing Piketty’s relevance for social movements and education

• In Event: Piketty’s Relevance for the Study of Education: Reflections on the Political Economy of Education

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to assess the relevance of Thomas Piketty’s (2014) Capitalism in the 21st Century for social movements and their educational goals. In Piketty’s economic treatise, he refutes the myth that inequality will naturally decrease with industrialization and economic growth. Piketty argues that returns on accumulated wealth are destined to increase at a much higher rate than economic growth, thus leading to an ever-expanding gap between the rich and the poor. What do these predications mean for social movements struggling for alternative educational models?

At first glance, Piketty’s ideas seem to suggest the relative insignificance of education for economic transformation. However, this conclusion only holds if schools are primarily institutions adapting and incorporating youth into the global economy. If, as many social movements demand, public schools encourage students to become change-agents, engaging in collective struggles to contest the current distribution of wealth, then education is indeed relevant to inequality in the twenty-first century. The paper explores the case of the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement (MST), a movement implementing pedagogies in schools that encourage students to participate in struggles for land redistribution and become peasant-intellectuals in their local communities. The paper argues that if educational scholars take Piketty seriously, a reconceptualization of the purpose of public education is indeed necessary.

Author

• Rebecca Tarlau, Soka University of America