Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel, Equality: What It Means and Why It Matters (2025)

This slim book (115 pages), which I read for my Zoom book club, is a transcript of a conversation between the two famous authors. It was illuminating, and I liked a lot of what they (especially Sandel) proposed, but I wished they had explored their areas of difference more actively. Picketty is pushing for a reinvigorated, again radical Social Democracy, which will restore a much more progressive tax regime, "decommodify" as much as 80-90% of the economy, and promote much greater North-South international cooperation and even, one day, establish a United States of the World. Sandel emphasized ways to take the sting out of meritocracy - for example, by introducing chance (through lotteries) in selection for top colleges, and by honoring all work. While the two men generally signalled their agreement with each other, the reader unfortunately didn't learn much about potential conflicts between their approaches. Picketty, for example, seems to think we need a much larger share of the population earning a college/university degree, while Sandel seems to want to devalue the credential of a college degree. Sandel's communitarianism seems to entail greater subsidiarity - smaller-scale communities being given more responsibility and strengthened - which would seem to be at odds with Picketty's socialist dream of a world community and government. Finally, Sandel calls for a more judgmental kind of political conversation and community, one that is willing to identify better and worse ways of life. But, I wonder, wouldn't this judgmentalism fuel the flames of populist resentment toward elites?