thenation--2020-05-19--What Happens When You Age Out of Foster Care During a Pandemic?

Bianca Bennett entered the New York foster care system as a 2-year-old , then again as a 13-year-old .
She aged out as a 21-year-old .
Like many young adults when they age out of the system , she spent several months after this couch-surfing .
She moved to Florida to attend college , eventually living in a student dorm .
Then , this March , the coronavirus shut down her campus .
Unable to stay in the dorm , she returned to New York City .
Her depression and anxiety made a brutal comeback , and she started sleeping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ s living with a couple in upstate New York while working part-time for the foster care nonprofit You Got ta Believe , unsure what will happen in the fall—her senior year .
Even so , Bennett considers herself lucky .
She was able to find a place to stay .
Others who faced the same obstacles haven ’ t been as fortunate .
“ If it wasn ’ t for [ the people I ’ m staying with ] , I ’ d probably be alone on the streets , trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and still going through my own thing , ” she told The Nation .
“ Because the city ’ s locked down , I probably wouldn ’ t be able to get a lot of resources the way I needed them.
” Even before Covid-19 swept the country , young adults who aged out of the foster care system without adequate support were less likely to have access to stable housing , employment , or health care .
With the pandemic shuttering businesses , closing campuses , and intimidating foster parents into refusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are facing a heightened level of precarity .
This story was produced for Student Nation , a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words .
For more Student Nation , check out our archive .
Are you a student with a campus activism story ?
Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at samantha @ thenation.com .
The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation .
As a result , California , Ohio , Illinois , Rhode Island @ @ @ @ @ @ @ announced plans to extend the aging-out guideline past the age of 21 for young adults in care during the pandemic .
In California , this extension is valid through June 30 , and young adults will still remain eligible for extended foster care even if they lost their jobs or their education programs have been disrupted because of the pandemic .
In Illinois , the 104 young adults in foster care who would be aging out of the system from April through June are also allowed to stay in their placement homes “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” At the end of April , Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that the state would cover the costs for over 200 young adults who would have aged out over the next few months to stay in care until the pandemic ends .
As well , two federal programs administered by the Children ’ s Bureau support states that choose to extend foster care beyond age 18 , a spokesperson from the Administration for Children and Families told The Nation in an e-mail .
For states to use the first option , Title @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school or working , preparing for employment , or have a medical condition that would prevent them from being in school or working .
Since 2010 , 31 states have exercised their Title IV-E foster care programs , according to the ACF .
The second federal program , Chafee for Successful Transition to Adulthood Funds , could originally be used to financially support foster youth up to age 21 .
After the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act in February 2018 , the funds could be used up to age 23 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raised alongside the age extension .
According to one 2019 report , the current allocation of Chafee funds provides , on average , about $ 1,500 per young adult per year .
At the federal level , states are not reimbursed for the cost of extending the aging-out period beyond the age prescribed in state statutes if they use state funds , even during this public health emergency , according to the ACF spokesperson .
These costs cover necessities from clothing to food to school supplies , and foster parents are reimbursed monthly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under their care in the system .
While the stimulus package passed in response to the pandemic , known as the CARES Act , provided $ 45 million for child welfare services and $ 25 million to the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program , how these funds are used still falls under the discretion of state leadership .
The ACF plans to continue working with Congress if any updated legislation is introduced in response to the pandemic , according to the spokesperson .
“ Unfortunately , some governors have not gotten this underway @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to pay the tab , ” Ruth White , executive director of the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare ( NCHCW ) , told The Nation .
Advocates have implored other officials to advance these protective measures nationwide .
Over 17,000 young adults are on track to be emancipated from state foster care this year , according to a joint letter from Foster Care Alumni of America and the NCHCW to the National Governors Association .
“ It is unconscionable and inhumane to release young adults under these conditions of international @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
A group of legal advocates in New York who work year-round to help foster youth land on their feet after aging out of the system encouraged Governor Cuomo to order an 180-day moratorium on discharging youth over the age of 18 from foster care without their consent , and to allow all young people under the age of 21 who have been discharged from foster care after age 18 to return to placements without asking for a court ’ s approval .
Last year , 1,075 young adults age 18 or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system .
Although youth in New York foster care can leave the system at age 18 , they can also choose to stay in care until they turn 21 .
At least a dozen shelters in New York City for children and teens experiencing homelessness do not feel the city is doing enough to protect this group ; they also fear outbreaks of the virus , considering the close quarters .
According to the Coalition for Homeless Youth , New York City had 54 shelter beds available for homeless youth ages 16 to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 21 to 24 in late March .
“ Foster youth weren ’ t really a priority before the pandemic , ” Bennett said .
“ Twenty-one doesn ’ t decide whether you ’ re an adult or not , especially in [ a city like ] New York that costs an arm and a leg to live in .
There ’ s not really adequate housing for our youth .
There are not a lot of jobs for our youth.
” Just after stay-at-home orders became a norm for most of the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 25 percent of the responding young adults from foster care ages 18 to 24—in the critical aging-out phase—were experiencing heightened food insecurity ; nearly 40 percent were forced to move , or were fearing having to move ; and nearly 33 percent said they had enough money for a week or less of living costs.
“ I have enough for grilled cheese for 2 days , ” one 18-year-old in Nebraska responded .
“ I feed myself and one other person.
” A 22-year-old from Massachusetts wrote , “ This crisis has forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ triggering environment.
” Ky Rodriguez entered the Ohio foster care system when she was 13 and aged out when she turned 18 .
In those five years , she lived in four different foster homes .
She couldn ’ t start attending Ohio University until nine months after she left the system , and the “ huge gap between emancipation and stabilization ” made her fear she was going to experience homelessness until classes began in the fall .
She ended up living with a former foster mother during this gap period , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ custody rights .
In the back of her mind , Ky said , she knew it was only a stopgap measure for housing security .
“ Living with her during that gap period , I definitely did feel like a burden , ” Rodriguez told The Nation .
“ I definitely did feel like a liability .
I definitely did feel like this is not something that is permanent ; like at any time , things can change.
” Working as a resident assistant in Ohio University dorms , Rodriguez was faced with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her head again at the end of this spring semester .
With classes moving online , she quickly learned she wouldn ’ t have the option to stay in the dorms over summer like she planned .
And she ’ s not alone : The NCHCW estimates that approximately 10,000 former foster youth live in college dorms nationwide .
While some colleges are keeping dorms open for their most vulnerable students , others gave foster youth 48 hours to vacate .
“ When I am going to school , I ’ ve noticed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ending up back in that space where I ’ m homeless and I need to figure out what I can do , or like I ’ m struggling , or I don ’ t have resources because there isn ’ t a safety net , ” Rodriguez said .
“ When the schools shut down , I know people were not thinking about foster youth , ” California Representative Karen Bass told The Nation .
“ They just told everybody to go back to their families .
But what about kids that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even international students ?
They can ’ t travel .
They ’ re stuck.
” Bass is one of five cochairs of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth , a bipartisan forum for policy recommendations on child welfare .
In April , the chairs sent a letter to governors urging them to “ take advantage of all available resources to support these young people as you manage the COVID-19 situation in your states , ” and to contact colleges and universities about offering aid to current or former foster youth .
While targeted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal level is still needed , the letter said , the chairs encouraged governors to utilize the funds that have already been allocated for states to use as they see fit for “ housing , nutrition , healthcare , and counseling needs of older foster youth.
” “ Child welfare should have always been thinking about what happens to kids in May , ” White said .
“ The holiday housing problem has existed for years .
Some schools have plans for this , some don ’ t. ” Chafee Independent Living funds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different kinds of housing for young adults up to age 23 , including hotels , host homes , shared housing , and rental assistance , according to the NCHCW .
In light of Covid-19 , the US Department of Housing and Urban Development also issued a “ mega-waiver ” memorandum , effective for six months starting on March 31 , that allows organizations for people experiencing homelessness to use Emergency Solutions Funding with more flexibility .
This could help former foster youth who are over the age of 23 and therefore can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public housing authorities are eligible to use the Foster Youth Independence Initiative , too .
This initiative was designed to offer “ tenant protection vouchers , ” allowing former foster youth to “ rent their own apartments and access services on a three-year path to self-sufficiency , ” according to the NCHCW .
In fiscal year 2020 , California , New York , and Texas received the largest allotments of Chafee funds , at over $ 16 million , $ 11 million , and $ 9 million , respectively .
Wyoming , Vermont @ @ @ @ @ @ @ received the smallest amount , at $ 500,000 each .
States are permitted to use up to 30 percent of their yearly Chafee funds to cover the costs of room and board , but , according to the NCHCW , this isn ’ t happening nearly as frequently as it should .
As few as 30 percent of former foster youth in many states end up receiving Chafee funding and services .
“ There is no excuse for this persistent failure and flouting of Congress ’ s intent , ” the NCHCW wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it released in February .
“ It ’ s something we were complaining about pre-Covid , ” White said .
“ States have been given millions of dollars of flexible money , but they cease to use it flexibly.
” The threat of homelessness not only puts former foster youth at a greater risk of getting sick ; it also makes them more vulnerable to abuse .
When former foster youth are forced to couch-surf for housing , they are not able to socially distance , Rodriguez said .
They are forced to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ open their doors .
The constant stress of uncertainty , she said , “ retraumatizes a lot of foster kids who have emancipated.
” Roughly 550,000 people in the United States are experiencing homelessness , which is leaving people with a “ double vulnerability ” to contracting Covid-19 .
While crowded shelters may not be able to keep people six feet apart , those living outside of shelters lack access to hand-washing stations and sometimes even soap and water .
Last month , the US economy lost 20.5 million jobs , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaving millions of people in economic desperation .
To circumvent this housing insecurity , Rodriguez said some recently emancipated young adults have been forced to shelter with abusive and exploitative people .
“ There are grown , way older adults who are agreeing to house 18-year-old kids who are fresh out of the foster system in exchange for sexual favors , ” she said .
“ They have nowhere to go , and they ’ ve been in unsafe situations with an abusive partner , but they can ’ t leave because that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they have.
” The pandemic also requires foster parents to inevitably put their health at a higher risk by providing shelter to those who may be on the verge of aging out of the foster care system , historically an age group of foster youth that already is less likely to be adopted or find stable home placements .
This only heightens young adults ’ fear and anxiety about being kicked out of the foster care system right now with no place to land , Rodriguez said .
“ Instead of this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said , “ with foster kids , this is going to be drastically life-changing.
” In addition to more effectively allocating Chafee funds for housing , the joint letter to the National Governors Association from Foster Care Alumni of America and the NCHCW encourages states to “ make sure that child welfare offers access to cell phones , telehealth professionals , mental health care professionals , or mentors to ensure ongoing social connections.
” Even though states have several options to support former foster youth during this pandemic , Rodriguez @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with “ the bottom line ” continues to be a challenge .
The National Council for Adoption estimates that annual state and federal expenditures for foster care total over $ 9 billion under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act alone .
“ I ’ ve noticed , even in Ohio , as soon as people turn 18 , they ’ re in a rush to hurry up and get them out of the system because it ’ s expensive to house kids in foster homes , to house kids in group homes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
For students who were formerly in the foster care system , who like Rodriguez and Bennett were scrambling to find the next place to live , the pandemic has exposed how the country ’ s educational institutions have become much more than a place of textbooks and lecture halls .
For many , they have become their sole de facto provider of housing , food , and other basic necessities—because they often are not available to them anywhere else .
“ If I had stayed in New York City any longer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t know where I ’ d be right now.
” Reach the National Alliance on Mental Illness by calling the HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI ( 6264 ) or texting NAMI to 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor .
To find the contact information for your state governor , visit www.nga.org/governors/addresses .

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Bianca Bennett entered the New York foster care system as a 2-year-old, then again as a 13-year-old. She aged out as a 21-year-old. Like many young adults when they age out of the system, she spent several months after this couch-surfing. She moved to Florida to attend college, eventually living in a student dorm. Then, this March, the coronavirus shut down her campus.
Unable to stay in the dorm, she returned to New York City. Her depression and anxiety made a brutal comeback, and she started sleeping 16 hours a day.
Now, she’s living with a couple in upstate New York while working part-time for the foster care nonprofit You Gotta Believe, unsure what will happen in the fall—her senior year. Even so, Bennett considers herself lucky. She was able to find a place to stay. Others who faced the same obstacles haven’t been as fortunate.
“If it wasn’t for [the people I’m staying with], I’d probably be alone on the streets, trying to be an advocate for youth, and still going through my own thing,” she told The Nation. “Because the city’s locked down, I probably wouldn’t be able to get a lot of resources the way I needed them.”
Even before Covid-19 swept the country, young adults who aged out of the foster care system without adequate support were less likely to have access to stable housing, employment, or health care. With the pandemic shuttering businesses, closing campuses, and intimidating foster parents into refusing to house new kids and teenagers, they are facing a heightened level of precarity. This story was produced for Student Nation, a section devoted to highlighting campus activism and student movements from students in their own words. For more Student Nation, check out our archive. Are you a student with a campus activism story? Send questions and pitches to Samantha Schuyler at [email protected]. The Student Nation program is made possible through generous funding from The Puffin Foundation.
As a result, California, Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia have announced plans to extend the aging-out guideline past the age of 21 for young adults in care during the pandemic. In California, this extension is valid through June 30, and young adults will still remain eligible for extended foster care even if they have lost their jobs or their education programs have been disrupted because of the pandemic. In Illinois, the 104 young adults in foster care who would be aging out of the system from April through June are also allowed to stay in their placement homes “until the pandemic crisis is declared over.” At the end of April, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that the state would cover the costs for over 200 young adults who would have aged out over the next few months to stay in care until the pandemic ends. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
As well, two federal programs administered by the Children’s Bureau support states that choose to extend foster care beyond age 18, a spokesperson from the Administration for Children and Families told The Nation in an e-mail. For states to use the first option, Title IV-E, young adults must be in school or working, preparing for employment, or have a medical condition that would prevent them from being in school or working. Since 2010, 31 states have exercised their Title IV-E foster care programs, according to the ACF. The second federal program, Chafee for Successful Transition to Adulthood Funds, could originally be used to financially support foster youth up to age 21. After the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act in February 2018, the funds could be used up to age 23, but the program funding was not raised alongside the age extension. According to one 2019 report, the current allocation of Chafee funds provides, on average, about $1,500 per young adult per year. Current Issue View our current issue
At the federal level, states are not reimbursed for the cost of extending the aging-out period beyond the age prescribed in state statutes if they use state funds, even during this public health emergency, according to the ACF spokesperson. These costs cover necessities from clothing to food to school supplies, and foster parents are reimbursed monthly for these expenses while someone is still under their care in the system. While the stimulus package passed in response to the pandemic, known as the CARES Act, provided $45 million for child welfare services and $25 million to the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program, how these funds are used still falls under the discretion of state leadership. The ACF plans to continue working with Congress if any updated legislation is introduced in response to the pandemic, according to the spokesperson.
“Unfortunately, some governors have not gotten this underway because they don’t want to have to pay the tab,” Ruth White, executive director of the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare (NCHCW), told The Nation.
Advocates have implored other officials to advance these protective measures nationwide. Over 17,000 young adults are on track to be emancipated from state foster care this year, according to a joint letter from Foster Care Alumni of America and the NCHCW to the National Governors Association. “It is unconscionable and inhumane to release young adults under these conditions of international unrest and uncertainty,” the letter said.
A group of legal advocates in New York who work year-round to help foster youth land on their feet after aging out of the system encouraged Governor Cuomo to order an 180-day moratorium on discharging youth over the age of 18 from foster care without their consent, and to allow all young people under the age of 21 who have been discharged from foster care after age 18 to return to placements without asking for a court’s approval.
Last year, 1,075 young adults age 18 or older left the New York foster care system. Although youth in New York foster care can leave the system at age 18, they can also choose to stay in care until they turn 21. At least a dozen shelters in New York City for children and teens experiencing homelessness do not feel the city is doing enough to protect this group; they also fear outbreaks of the virus, considering the close quarters. According to the Coalition for Homeless Youth, New York City had 54 shelter beds available for homeless youth ages 16 to 20, and none for those ages 21 to 24 in late March.
“Foster youth weren’t really a priority before the pandemic,” Bennett said. “Twenty-one doesn’t decide whether you’re an adult or not, especially in [a city like] New York that costs an arm and a leg to live in. There’s not really adequate housing for our youth. There are not a lot of jobs for our youth.”
Just after stay-at-home orders became a norm for most of the country, one national poll found that over 25 percent of the responding young adults from foster care ages 18 to 24—in the critical aging-out phase—were experiencing heightened food insecurity; nearly 40 percent were forced to move, or were fearing having to move; and nearly 33 percent said they had enough money for a week or less of living costs.“I have enough for grilled cheese for 2 days,” one 18-year-old in Nebraska responded. “I feed myself and one other person.” A 22-year-old from Massachusetts wrote, “This crisis has forced me back to a very toxic and triggering environment.”
Ky Rodriguez entered the Ohio foster care system when she was 13 and aged out when she turned 18. In those five years, she lived in four different foster homes. She couldn’t start attending Ohio University until nine months after she left the system, and the “huge gap between emancipation and stabilization” made her fear she was going to experience homelessness until classes began in the fall. She ended up living with a former foster mother during this gap period, even though the woman no longer had custody rights. In the back of her mind, Ky said, she knew it was only a stopgap measure for housing security.
“Living with her during that gap period, I definitely did feel like a burden,” Rodriguez told The Nation. “I definitely did feel like a liability. I definitely did feel like this is not something that is permanent; like at any time, things can change.”
Working as a resident assistant in Ohio University dorms, Rodriguez was faced with the fear of losing the roof over her head again at the end of this spring semester. With classes moving online, she quickly learned she wouldn’t have the option to stay in the dorms over summer like she planned. And she’s not alone: The NCHCW estimates that approximately 10,000 former foster youth live in college dorms nationwide. While some colleges are keeping dorms open for their most vulnerable students, others gave foster youth 48 hours to vacate.
“When I am going to school, I’ve noticed how vulnerable I am to losing things and ending up back in that space where I’m homeless and I need to figure out what I can do, or like I’m struggling, or I don’t have resources because there isn’t a safety net,” Rodriguez said.
“When the schools shut down, I know people were not thinking about foster youth,” California Representative Karen Bass told The Nation. “They just told everybody to go back to their families. But what about kids that didn’t have families, or even international students? They can’t travel. They’re stuck.”
Bass is one of five cochairs of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, a bipartisan forum for policy recommendations on child welfare. In April, the chairs sent a letter to governors urging them to “take advantage of all available resources to support these young people as you manage the COVID-19 situation in your states,” and to contact colleges and universities about offering aid to current or former foster youth. While targeted funding for older foster youth at the federal level is still needed, the letter said, the chairs encouraged governors to utilize the funds that have already been allocated for states to use as they see fit for “housing, nutrition, healthcare, and counseling needs of older foster youth.”
“Child welfare should have always been thinking about what happens to kids in May,” White said. “The holiday housing problem has existed for years. Some schools have plans for this, some don’t.”
Chafee Independent Living funds are designed to be flexible for many different kinds of housing for young adults up to age 23, including hotels, host homes, shared housing, and rental assistance, according to the NCHCW. In light of Covid-19, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development also issued a “mega-waiver” memorandum, effective for six months starting on March 31, that allows organizations for people experiencing homelessness to use Emergency Solutions Funding with more flexibility. This could help former foster youth who are over the age of 23 and therefore can’t utilize Chafee funds. Over 1,900 public housing authorities are eligible to use the Foster Youth Independence Initiative, too. This initiative was designed to offer “tenant protection vouchers,” allowing former foster youth to “rent their own apartments and access services on a three-year path to self-sufficiency,” according to the NCHCW.
In fiscal year 2020, California, New York, and Texas received the largest allotments of Chafee funds, at over $16 million, $11 million, and $9 million, respectively. Wyoming, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Delaware each received the smallest amount, at $500,000 each. States are permitted to use up to 30 percent of their yearly Chafee funds to cover the costs of room and board, but, according to the NCHCW, this isn’t happening nearly as frequently as it should. As few as 30 percent of former foster youth in many states end up receiving Chafee funding and services. “There is no excuse for this persistent failure and flouting of Congress’s intent,” the NCHCW wrote in a list of recommendations for states it released in February.
“It’s something we were complaining about pre-Covid,” White said. “States have been given millions of dollars of flexible money, but they cease to use it flexibly.”
The threat of homelessness not only puts former foster youth at a greater risk of getting sick; it also makes them more vulnerable to abuse. When former foster youth are forced to couch-surf for housing, they are not able to socially distance, Rodriguez said. They are forced to rely on the kindness of others to open their doors. The constant stress of uncertainty, she said, “retraumatizes a lot of foster kids who have emancipated.”
Roughly 550,000 people in the United States are experiencing homelessness, which is leaving people with a “double vulnerability” to contracting Covid-19. While crowded shelters may not be able to keep people six feet apart, those living outside of shelters lack access to hand-washing stations and sometimes even soap and water. Last month, the US economy lost 20.5 million jobs, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent, leaving millions of people in economic desperation.
To circumvent this housing insecurity, Rodriguez said some recently emancipated young adults have been forced to shelter with abusive and exploitative people. “There are grown, way older adults who are agreeing to house 18-year-old kids who are fresh out of the foster system in exchange for sexual favors,” she said. “They have nowhere to go, and they’ve been in unsafe situations with an abusive partner, but they can’t leave because that’s the only form of housing that they have.”
The pandemic also requires foster parents to inevitably put their health at a higher risk by providing shelter to those who may be on the verge of aging out of the foster care system, historically an age group of foster youth that already is less likely to be adopted or find stable home placements. This only heightens young adults’ fear and anxiety about being kicked out of the foster care system right now with no place to land, Rodriguez said. “Instead of this being…some kind of inconvenience for some people,” she said, “with foster kids, this is going to be drastically life-changing.”
In addition to more effectively allocating Chafee funds for housing, the joint letter to the National Governors Association from Foster Care Alumni of America and the NCHCW encourages states to “make sure that child welfare offers access to cell phones, telehealth professionals, mental health care professionals, or mentors to ensure ongoing social connections.” Even though states have several options to support former foster youth during this pandemic, Rodriguez and White stressed that states’ concern with “the bottom line” continues to be a challenge.
The National Council for Adoption estimates that annual state and federal expenditures for foster care total over $9 billion under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act alone. “I’ve noticed, even in Ohio, as soon as people turn 18, they’re in a rush to hurry up and get them out of the system because it’s expensive to house kids in foster homes, to house kids in group homes or residential facilities,” Rodriguez said.
For students who were formerly in the foster care system, who like Rodriguez and Bennett were scrambling to find the next place to live, the pandemic has exposed how the country’s educational institutions have become much more than a place of textbooks and lecture halls. For many, they have become their sole de facto provider of housing, food, and other basic necessities—because they often are not available to them anywhere else. “If I had stayed in New York City any longer,” said Bennett, “I don’t know where I’d be right now.”
Reach the National Alliance on Mental Illness by calling the HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or texting NAMI to 741-741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor. To find the contact information for your state governor, visit www.nga.org/governors/addresses.


thenation--2020-05-19--What Are the Roots of Global Inequality?

On a Friday night early this past winter , two of France ’ s left-wing intellectual heavyweights duked it out over a familiar question : What to do about private property ?
At the Paris Bourse du Travail , a union hall shared by the local branches of the country ’ s major labor confederations , the radical economist Frédéric Lordon played to the crowd .
Sporting a hoodie , light blue jeans , and navy sneakers , the fire-breathing Lordon called for abolishing and collectivizing all private property .
In a collared shirt and dress shoes , his opponent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has been sounding the alarm about skyrocketing wealth inequality , found himself in an unfamiliar position .
One of the world ’ s foremost critics of capitalism , Thomas Piketty was making the case for moderation , or as he put it , a more lasting “ radicality.
” “ The false radicality of saying , ‘ We ’ ll talk about it later , after the collapse of the current economic system ’ or ‘ We don ’ t want any form of private property in the socialist or communist system we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a very cheap radicality , ” Piketty insisted .
“ It ’ s a radicality that doesn ’ t scare anyone .
The elimination of very small types of private property doesn ’ t at all correspond to what ’ s being asked or what is desirable from the point of view of individual emancipation.
” A socialist future that allows for small-scale bakeries and restaurants might not be so bad , Piketty argued .
Rather than abolishing all forms of private property , one could achieve an egalitarian and democratic society by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transferring power from shareholders to employees .
When one of the moderators asked him if he believed in the prospects of the Grand Soir—the Great Evening , or the notion of an inevitable workers ’ revolution that has inspired generations of French leftists—Piketty fired back , “ The Grand Soir is great , but it ’ s the morning after that interests me most.
” That seems a good way of summing up Piketty ’ s approach overall .
Trained by mainstream economists at Paris ’ s School for Advanced Studies in Social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Economics , he has always been more of a midcentury social democrat than a revolutionary .
All the same , his interest in inequality has pushed him into terrain that has long been the domain of a more radical left—contemplating not only restrictions on wealth accumulation but also the political empowerment of ordinary people .
This interest in tackling inequality was explored in the book that made him famous , Capital in the Twenty-First Century , which he concluded with a call for a global wealth tax .
But in his follow-up , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gears .
While he dedicates a large portion of the book to the history of economic injustice , he also offers a more fully fledged program aimed at making it disappear .
Capital in the Twenty-First Century arrived in France in 2013 ( an English translation came out the following year ) , replete with rigorous insights into the history of wealth inequalities at a moment of growing backlash against them .
Published less than three years after the explosion of Occupy Wall Street in the United States and amid the heady surge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Piketty ’ s work found a ready-made audience on both sides of the Atlantic .
Not only did the economist delve into reams of tax data to show how the top 1 percent was getting ever richer , but he also made a bold claim about the very nature of capitalism itself .
Capital ’ s rate of return , he posited , is greater than the overall rate of economic growth .
In other words , wealth grows faster than the rest of the economy , leading to increasingly concentrated inequality @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , capitalism does not produce a trickle-down effect ; instead , it tends toward the reproduction of mass wealth disparities and thus to hardening class stratification .
This imbalance isn ’ t a glitch in the system but rather the natural product of the global economy left to its own devices .
For those who read Capital in the Twenty-First Century ( or those who only read about those reading it ) , the appeal was obvious : Piketty had taken a wrecking ball to the claim that capitalism improves mass living standards @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divided the world in two but had become so ingrained in the ethos of the early 21st century that it hardly seemed worth discussing .
And while some of Piketty ’ s arguments weren ’ t easy for the nonspecialist to digest , he managed to hammer home other points with elegance , quoting passages from Balzac and Jane Austen to remind readers of the long-term importance of inherited wealth and class status .
Almost overnight , the book transformed him into a globe-trotting intellectual celebrity .
It also renewed attention in France @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2009 , Piketty ’ s former romantic partner Aurélie Filippetti , then a Socialist member of the French Parliament who later became minister of culture , filed a complaint against him , which was withdrawn after he apologized for having made her “ suffer violence.
” Capital in the Twenty-First Century ’ s popularity turned on a central insight : Piketty shifted the focus of his analysis away from income disparities to disparities in wealth .
The rich aren ’ t just getting ahead by earning more , though that ’ s part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outpacing the rest of us through their investments and homes and land , passed down from generation to generation .
Because of this structural imbalance , Piketty insisted , only a global wealth tax , implemented by national authorities and coordinated on an international level , could begin to tame the power of capital .
Although difficult to realize in comparison with the more expansive social democratic programs articulated by an emerging new left , a global wealth tax was a relatively modest proposal but one that was revelatory nonetheless .
As the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Bernie Sanders , put it , Capital in the Twenty-First Century was “ the right book at the right time.
” Capital and Ideology is a different kind of book .
Translated by Arthur Goldhammer , it moves from an account of wealth accumulation in the most advanced economies over the last few centuries to a sprawling exploration of inequality worldwide going back to the Middle Ages .
In the process , Piketty wades a few steps further into the forbidding waters of politics .
Opening with a look at the feudal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the development of capitalism and colonialism , he then turns to communism and the heyday of social democracy in a brief study of the post–World War II era before ending with a chapter that outlines a “ participatory socialism for the 21st century.
” This was the same set of proposals that he defended against Lordon in January and has been championing in the French press since the book ’ s release last September .
In both its ambition and tone , Piketty ’ s socialism is not all that different from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but it marks a considerable move left for someone whose first forays into politics fell firmly within the mainstream of France ’ s Socialist Party , which by the 1990s had abandoned any pretense of breaking with capitalism .
In fact , Capital and Ideology goes well beyond anything proposed by the leading parties of the European left today , including Podemos in Spain and Jean-Luc Mélenchon ’ s left-populist La France Insoumise .
At just over 1,100 pages , Piketty ’ s new book surpasses Capital in the Twenty-First Century in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; it is , in many ways , a far more ambitious work in both its range and its politics .
For one thing , he expands his analysis of inequality beyond the major Western economies that constituted much of his earlier focus .
He unpacks the concentration of wealth in colonial and slaveholding societies like British-occupied India , French-controlled Algeria , and prerevolutionary Haiti ( which was , in 1780 , the world ’ s most unequal society , according to Piketty ) .
Making stops in apartheid-era South Africa and contemporary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concentration of wealth—or lack thereof—in the Soviet Union and the People ’ s Republic of China .
This journey is not an abstract undertaking .
As in his previous book , Piketty ’ s quest to quantify and track inequality is grounded in a rigorous analysis of data ( much of it tax returns but also censuses and government budgets ) .
In Capital and Ideology , he also seeks to better explain how systems of inequality persist and justify themselves .
In what is ultimately as much a work of history as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ ideology seriously.
” Modern economics , he suggests , can shed light on an ultraspecific set of trends—say , how tax cuts for high-income earners affect wealth distribution and the gap between wage growth and productivity—but the dismal science often struggles to supply a larger picture of how these policies came into being , why they last , or how they operate across borders and regions .
To truly understand inequality , he posits , one must think globally .
And to think globally , one must also turn to politics—the politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ideological frameworks that justify social arrangements .
Piketty begins his story with Europe ’ s “ ternary ” or “ trifunctional ” societies : feudal regimes in which the nobility , the clergy , and commoners all played rigidly defined roles .
This system of rights and obligations began collapsing in the 16th century—most dramatically in France in the 18th century , where a revolution ushered in an awesome expansion of individual property rights .
While the uprising was fueled in part by the promise of égalité and fraternité , these ideals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revolution .
As Piketty shows , by the late 19th century , France was even more unequal than it was under the ancien régime .
The inequality in postrevolutionary Europe continued to increase until the early 20th century .
Private sector wealth tumbled during World War I and the Great Depression , but it took an even larger global conflict for an alternative political framework to emerge .
As states responded to the chaos of World War II , they moved quickly to take over key sectors of the economy ; they also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taxes and granted new rights to workers .
As a result , in France during the postwar years , the top 10 percent ’ s stranglehold on wealth fell even further , as it did elsewhere in Europe .
Around the same time in Soviet Russia , inequality remained even lower .
Once slouching into rampant material disparities , many countries were now able to more fully realize the promise of equality and fraternity .
The “ proprietarian societies ” ( which Goldhammer helpfully translates as “ ownership societies ” ) that had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proved to be not the natural and inevitable outcome of market forces but the result of specific decisions that prioritized individual property rights—decisions , moreover , that could be reversed .
“ Inequality , ” Piketty says , “ is neither economic nor technological ; it is ideological and political.
” After these ownership societies entered into a state of crisis in the early 20th century , social democratic governments emerged that vowed to tackle inequality and place limits on property rights .
They imposed or extended taxes on income ( and in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access to education and housing .
Many pursued the nationalization of key industries and , in the German and Nordic cases , forced businesses to share power with workers through innovative “ co-management ” measures .
But the glory days didn ’ t last long .
With an increasingly globalized economy came not just greater global inequality but greater domestic inequality as well .
The European Union established a monetary federation , but it failed to achieve a fiscal or budgetary one—creating a situation today in which corporations can easily offshore and outsource @ @ @ @ @ @ @ superrich can shelter their wealth with little pushback .
Social democrats proved unable to adapt to these changing times and renew their platforms accordingly .
Much the same happened in the United States : The conservative revolution ushered in a wave of deregulation and tax cuts , paving the way for the top 1 percent to amass more and more wealth while the American center-left failed to double down on its redistributive agenda and offer its base a convincing alternative .
Today as a result , a “ neo-proprietarian ” order reigns supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the 19th century ownership societies , this order is also marked by an extreme form of meritocratic ideology , one that blames the poor for their struggles and idolizes billionaires for their success .
But if they stand so plainly against the collective interest , how do these proprietarian and neo-proprietarian societies sustain themselves in majoritarian systems ?
For Piketty , the answer is ideology .
While Marx and Engels argued that the underlying material conditions and class structure of a given society held the key to understanding the resilience ( or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) of its political system , Piketty has a very different read on how authority reproduces itself .
Class certainly influences the way people think , but so do other factors , from religious beliefs and a sense of national belonging to the seemingly random crises that occur throughout history , like famines and pandemics .
Paradigm shifts are contingent on all of the above , not just on the formation of social classes or the tensions that arise among them .
At the same time , in Piketty ’ s view , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marxist intellectuals have historically recognized .
Justifications for who gets to own what are ever capable of change and compromise , depending on the actors behind them—evolving , fading , or regenerating .
For example , the 19th century proprietarian order had its roots , Piketty argues , in what was originally a very simple goal : the separation of the state ’ s authority—the provision of security and laws and a monopoly on violence—from the individual ’ s right to hold and sell property .
Making this separation was clear enough , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set limits on the latter remained an open question , as debates raged over whether to adopt land reforms to benefit small-scale farmers or impose progressive taxes on income or estates .
In the end , the egalitarians lost out .
Piketty contends that this debate was settled through political choices—a marked contrast with both classical and neoclassical liberal economics , as well as classical Marxist economics , all of which tended to naturalize these changes as inevitable .
Instead , a “ fear of the void , ” as Piketty puts it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the late 18th century helped usher in the sacralization of private property .
Whereas the old trifunctional system was held together by religion—a critical role performed by the clergy—the order that emerged in its wake initially lacked a mechanism to provide a similar sense of institutional stability .
Ultimately , this void was filled by a quasi-religious worship of property .
The resulting proprietarian societies , while genuinely emancipatory for some , were disastrous for many others , evolving in the 19th century into deeply inegalitarian and dehumanizing systems .
As Piketty notes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they directed financial compensation not to the enslaved , who had been denied a wage for the entirety of their lives , but to the former slaveholders .
While the original proprietarian order had its roots in democratic revolutions , the neo-proprietarian order has a very different origin .
It was born , Piketty asserts , largely as a response to the spread of social democracy and fueled by a sense that redistributive policies had gone too far .
After the popular breakthroughs of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher , the fall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the neo-proprietarians .
Today ’ s dominant order , then , marks a return to some of the earliest capitalist values : glorification of the supposedly individual accomplishments of the superrich , systematic bashing of the poor in the name of meritocracy , and incessant warnings against regulation for fear of opening Pandora ’ s box .
All of this has produced an intense backlash against even modest proposals to rein in property—notably by hindering governments ’ ability to track the movement of wealth internationally .
While all of this will strike many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frustrate some is that Piketty never identifies a central force behind these world historical changes .
There is no one motor , in his account , driving these conflicts forward .
While Marx privileged class formation and class tensions , Piketty appears committed to unpacking each of the major transformations he identifies on its own terms , insisting on a multitude of alternative paths that might have been followed at any given moment .
Some may find this approach nuanced ; others may be put off by its unwillingness to dig in and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a unifying theory of change comes at the book ’ s conclusion , when he turns to an oft-cited proclamation by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto , “ The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
” “ Their assertion remains pertinent , ” Piketty writes , “ but now that this book is done , I am tempted to reformulate it as follows : the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of the struggle of ideologies and the quest for justice.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ off the tongue like Marx and Engels ’ s original , and yet Piketty ’ s version does have a certain political urgency to it .
Capitalism may encourage the concentration of wealth , and it may well be plainly unfair , but these aren ’ t sufficient conditions for an alternative to emerge , especially when the political and cultural arguments for the status quo are so widely accepted .
To push back , therefore , we need to propose our own more egalitarian visions of society and rally large numbers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order is possible , though it remains conditional on our actions—like any other regime change in history .
The challenges to winning people over to a more egalitarian vision of society become clearest when Piketty turns to the origins of our current impasse .
Refreshingly , these are not presented as some inevitable consequence of globalization or technological progress .
Instead , they ’ re the product of a series of misguided—albeit reversible—political choices .
Examining decades of voting patterns , Piketty shows how the historically center-left parties in the United States , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from what he calls “ workers ’ parties ” into “ parties of the educated.
” In the period immediately following World War II , the various parties of the center-left—whether the Socialists in coalition with the Gaullists or the Democratic Party under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman—all won the bulk of their support from voters with lower levels of education and income .
These parties , however , began to lose their working-class base in the 1960s and ’ 70s ( and in the United States ’ case , the 1950s ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old class cleavages had disappeared , with many working-class people feeling cast out from their traditional political homes and either voting for right-wing parties or not voting at all .
For Piketty , then , it ’ s not a simple question of the center-left parties losing ground to the right ; they also lost ground with their own base .
A look at the coalitions behind François Hollande in France and Jeremy Corbyn ’ s strong showing in the UK in 2017 only clarifies this trend .
Their candidacies garnered much greater @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the least-educated ones .
How did such a dramatic reversal come about ?
A common hypothesis is that white working-class voters were increasingly receptive to the nativist and racist ideas on the rise .
This may be partly true , but it does not account for the losses and diminished enthusiasm among other working-class voters at the same time .
The bigger reason , Piketty argues , is that social democratic parties abandoned the cause of wealth redistribution .
By accepting the terms of Reaganomics and Thatcherism , the historical parties of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of what constitutes a fair society and lost the faith of their working-class base .
Placing a higher value on things like educational achievement , public access to culture , and somewhat higher taxes on the wealthy , the members of what Piketty dubs the “ Brahmin left ” gave up on the very redistributive politics that had won support among a low-to-middle-income electorate .
As the parties of the left lost their historical base , Piketty continues , right-wing parties began to absorb parts of it .
They continued to defend the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but they also attracted many white working-class voters , weaponizing questions of race and identity to win them over .
This “ merchant right , ” Piketty argues , became the high-income counterpart to the Brahmin left and proved to be better at attracting certain segments of the working-class vote .
To be sure , this balance is deeply unstable , as shown by France ’ s most recent presidential race , which saw the emergence of both a rejuvenated left-wing bloc and an energized far right—only for a Brahmin liberal to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic Party illustrate similar tensions , with figures like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg defending the values of the Brahmin left against an insurgent wing demanding that the party reverse its hands-off approach to inequality and once again represent the interests of working people .
While Piketty completed his book before the US primaries began , it ’ s not hard to imagine what he might say about the candidacy of Bernie Sanders .
Though it clearly wasn ’ t enough to win him the Democratic nomination , Sanders ’ s popularity underscores @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s role in regulating and , yes , managing the economy .
In the last 70 pages of Capital and Ideology , Piketty outlines what a “ participatory socialism ” in the 21st century might look like .
The first pillar of his program , “ social ownership , ” involves curtailing the influence of managers and shareholders and boosting the decision-making power of employees .
Under his proposal , workers would receive half the seats on companies ’ boards of directors , with a ceiling imposed on the voting rights of investors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power of large shareholders .
The second pillar , “ temporary private ownership , ” involves enacting a set of progressive and , ideally , internationally coordinated taxes on property , inheritance , and income .
All of this is complemented by what Piketty calls “ inheritance for all , ” a lump sum grant to citizens once they reach the age of 25 .
( He suggests the sum be set at just over $ 130,000 in France today . )
He stresses that these proposals are an initial blueprint more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be tinkered with according to circumstances rather than a political program to be followed to the letter .
“ Justice , ” he writes , “ must always be conceived as the result of ongoing collective deliberation.
” While it may seem self-evident in the United States to call this program socialist , Piketty ’ s use of the S-word in France is a bit more fraught .
Tarnished by decades of compromise and failure to live up to the ideas in its platform , in particular during Hollande ’ s time in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of the Brahmin left as much as any center-left party and has lost much of its support on the national level .
In response to the party ’ s many letdowns , its rivals on the French left today often avoid talk of socialism , appealing instead to the values of humanism , solidarity , and ecology , or—in the case of Mélenchon ’ s movement—calling for a citizens ’ revolution .
But what else is one supposed to call an international project that involves radically overhauling property rights in favor of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stretching back more than 150 years , the idea of socialism still seems a worthy goal , whether fully attainable or not , and its rich history offers lessons , warts and all .
In Europe , that means owning the victories , mistakes , and betrayals of the past , while in the United States , it means signaling a clear desire to leave behind a system that ’ s increasingly unpopular and unsustainable .
The emphasis on internationalism in Capital and Ideology is also important .
In recent years , Europe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As parties like Alternative for Germany , France ’ s National Rally , and Italy ’ s Lega have discovered , refocusing popular ire from large-scale property owners to bureaucrats in Brussels can pay handsome political dividends .
In pursuit of very different goals , some on the left ( most notably Mélenchon ) have also directed much of their venom toward the EU .
Its suffocating budgetary restrictions and democratic deficit are worthy of denunciation , no doubt , but sometimes the left-populist criticism can feel cheap—a diversion from other pressing issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flag-waving .
The bigger question either way , assuming one rules out leaving the EU , is how to change it .
Piketty calls for cross-border cooperation , and this should be obvious .
Whether or not his entire platform is achievable in the short term , the reality is that anything close to it would all but require help from abroad to succeed : a bevy of allied countries adopting common policies , collectively disobeying certain EU rules , and investing political capital in revising treaties .
As the coronavirus crisis has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be broken under the right circumstances and with sufficient political will .
With countries dramatically ramping up their deficit spending to protect their citizens , the EU has suspended requirements for its members to reduce their deficits and limit their debt-to-GDP ratios .
As the world reels from the horrifying devastation of the pandemic , the centrality of an internationalist politics becomes all the more urgent .
Economic and material security can not be secured in one country alone , nor can a participatory socialism defend itself from global problems , whether epidemiological @ @ @ @ @ @ @ environmentalist circles , the crisis has reignited criticism of international trade and sparked calls to promote more local production of goods and services .
Rewiring global supply chains is a worthy goal , but even this would require international collaboration , as would any hopes of boosting working-class power , redistributing vast amounts of wealth , and submitting the economy to democratic oversight .
There is no way to durably achieve these aims on a solely national scale .
Of course , as the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and the global recession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Piketty ’ s “ neo-proprietarian order ” will not come out even stronger .
Already the pace of change is breathtakingly fast .
While most European states have agreed to cover large shares of the wages lost by workers and as some consider outright takeovers of certain companies , EU leaders have also refused to come to the direct aid of Italy and Spain , revealing their stubborn attachment to the eurozone ’ s flawed architecture .
The United States , meanwhile , has limited its relief to a bailout that includes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Americans but also sends hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations , with precious few strings attached .
Against this backdrop , Piketty ’ s proposals don ’ t seem far-fetched , but the political nature of achieving them appears all the clearer .
Things could change in the coming months , but without a wave of working-class pressure and movements that fundamentally threaten the leaders and parties in charge , the making of the post-coronavirus world will be left to the same ruling elites that brought us this mess in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes to enacting “ participatory socialism , ” Piketty ’ s reading of history suggests that radicals who scoff at electoral politics may have a point .
Rather than through the ballot box alone , Capital and Ideology suggests , the great ideological transformations of the past often resulted from crises that unmade the previous order : recessions , wars , and revolutions .
We appear to be at such a tipping point right now .
But one also wonders what gets left out by a vision of history that privileges ideas to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most extreme , it can obscure the fact that there are certain groups that simply aren ’ t interested in a good-faith debate—not because they haven ’ t been convinced yet but because they have a vested material interest in not listening at all .
No matter how sensible the counterargument may be , most billionaires will oppose wealth taxes and most bosses pay hikes .
Ongoing debates about economic aid in Europe have underscored the same point .
Despite all the damage they risk inflicting on the future of the EU , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closest neighbors are grappling with humanitarian catastrophe , the business elites of Germany and the Netherlands continue to oppose direct cash subsidies for Italy and Spain along with even modest proposals to issue jointly backed European debt , all because existing arrangements offer them a slight competitive advantage .
Immediate material self-interest , it seems , often trumps the more rational long-term choice .
Piketty ’ s latest work offers us plenty of valuable ideas .
But in the end , one can ’ t help but wonder if he underplays the extent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relationship with wealth ( their position in the property regime , one might say ) influences how they look at the world and engage in politics .
Ultimately , the interests that unite the top one-tenth of 1 percent of wealth holders may be a bit stronger than Piketty suggests , not unlike the ties that bind the bottom 60 percent or so .
Piketty ’ s views on this mark a clear departure from the Marxist conception of class , yet his open-ended vision of historical change still offers space for popular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one prefers—the “ working class , ” “ the multitude , ” “ the people , ” or something else—it remains up to us to build the movements and organizations required to make a world better suited to human needs .
And perhaps someday , the myths we tell ourselves about why things are the way they are will be considered every bit as cruel and irrational as those of the past and will cease to be specters that haunt our present .

This article appears in the June 1/8, 2020 issue.
On a Friday night early this past winter, two of France’s left-wing intellectual heavyweights duked it out over a familiar question: What to do about private property? At the Paris Bourse du Travail, a union hall shared by the local branches of the country’s major labor confederations, the radical economist Frédéric Lordon played to the crowd. Sporting a hoodie, light blue jeans, and navy sneakers, the fire-breathing Lordon called for abolishing and collectivizing all private property. In a collared shirt and dress shoes, his opponent, who for the last several years has been sounding the alarm about skyrocketing wealth inequality, found himself in an unfamiliar position. One of the world’s foremost critics of capitalism, Thomas Piketty was making the case for moderation, or as he put it, a more lasting “radicality.” “The false radicality of saying, ‘We’ll talk about it later, after the collapse of the current economic system’ or ‘We don’t want any form of private property in the socialist or communist system we have in mind’—this is actually a very cheap radicality,” Piketty insisted. “It’s a radicality that doesn’t scare anyone. The elimination of very small types of private property doesn’t at all correspond to what’s being asked or what is desirable from the point of view of individual emancipation.” Books in Review Capital and Ideology By Thomas Piketty; Arthur Goldhammer, trans. Buy this book
A socialist future that allows for small-scale bakeries and restaurants might not be so bad, Piketty argued. Rather than abolishing all forms of private property, one could achieve an egalitarian and democratic society by more heavily taxing wealth and income and transferring power from shareholders to employees. When one of the moderators asked him if he believed in the prospects of the Grand Soir—the Great Evening, or the notion of an inevitable workers’ revolution that has inspired generations of French leftists—Piketty fired back, “The Grand Soir is great, but it’s the morning after that interests me most.”
That seems a good way of summing up Piketty’s approach overall. Trained by mainstream economists at Paris’s School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences and at the London School of Economics, he has always been more of a midcentury social democrat than a revolutionary. All the same, his interest in inequality has pushed him into terrain that has long been the domain of a more radical left—contemplating not only restrictions on wealth accumulation but also the political empowerment of ordinary people. This interest in tackling inequality was explored in the book that made him famous, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which he concluded with a call for a global wealth tax. But in his follow-up, Capital and Ideology, Piketty has shifted gears. While he dedicates a large portion of the book to the history of economic injustice, he also offers a more fully fledged program aimed at making it disappear.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century arrived in France in 2013 (an English translation came out the following year), replete with rigorous insights into the history of wealth inequalities at a moment of growing backlash against them. Published less than three years after the explosion of Occupy Wall Street in the United States and amid the heady surge of left-wing parties in Greece and Spain, Piketty’s work found a ready-made audience on both sides of the Atlantic. Not only did the economist delve into reams of tax data to show how the top 1 percent was getting ever richer, but he also made a bold claim about the very nature of capitalism itself. Capital’s rate of return, he posited, is greater than the overall rate of economic growth. In other words, wealth grows faster than the rest of the economy, leading to increasingly concentrated inequality. Unless policy-makers respond with countervailing measures, capitalism does not produce a trickle-down effect; instead, it tends toward the reproduction of mass wealth disparities and thus to hardening class stratification. This imbalance isn’t a glitch in the system but rather the natural product of the global economy left to its own devices. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
For those who read Capital in the Twenty-First Century (or those who only read about those reading it), the appeal was obvious: Piketty had taken a wrecking ball to the claim that capitalism improves mass living standards over time, a contention that once divided the world in two but had become so ingrained in the ethos of the early 21st century that it hardly seemed worth discussing. And while some of Piketty’s arguments weren’t easy for the nonspecialist to digest, he managed to hammer home other points with elegance, quoting passages from Balzac and Jane Austen to remind readers of the long-term importance of inherited wealth and class status. Almost overnight, the book transformed him into a globe-trotting intellectual celebrity. It also renewed attention in France to a domestic violence case: In 2009, Piketty’s former romantic partner Aurélie Filippetti, then a Socialist member of the French Parliament who later became minister of culture, filed a complaint against him, which was withdrawn after he apologized for having made her “suffer violence.”
Capital in the Twenty-First Century’s popularity turned on a central insight: Piketty shifted the focus of his analysis away from income disparities to disparities in wealth. The rich aren’t just getting ahead by earning more, though that’s part of it; they’re also outpacing the rest of us through their investments and homes and land, passed down from generation to generation. Because of this structural imbalance, Piketty insisted, only a global wealth tax, implemented by national authorities and coordinated on an international level, could begin to tame the power of capital. Although difficult to realize in comparison with the more expansive social democratic programs articulated by an emerging new left, a global wealth tax was a relatively modest proposal but one that was revelatory nonetheless. As the economist Stephanie Kelton, a former adviser to Bernie Sanders, put it, Capital in the Twenty-First Century was “the right book at the right time.”
Capital and Ideology is a different kind of book. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer, it moves from an account of wealth accumulation in the most advanced economies over the last few centuries to a sprawling exploration of inequality worldwide going back to the Middle Ages. In the process, Piketty wades a few steps further into the forbidding waters of politics. Opening with a look at the feudal societies of the premodern era and surveying the development of capitalism and colonialism, he then turns to communism and the heyday of social democracy in a brief study of the post–World War II era before ending with a chapter that outlines a “participatory socialism for the 21st century.” This was the same set of proposals that he defended against Lordon in January and has been championing in the French press since the book’s release last September. In both its ambition and tone, Piketty’s socialism is not all that different from the parliamentary socialism of the early 20th century, but it marks a considerable move left for someone whose first forays into politics fell firmly within the mainstream of France’s Socialist Party, which by the 1990s had abandoned any pretense of breaking with capitalism. In fact, Capital and Ideology goes well beyond anything proposed by the leading parties of the European left today, including Podemos in Spain and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-populist La France Insoumise. Current Issue View our current issue
At just over 1,100 pages, Piketty’s new book surpasses Capital in the Twenty-First Century in size and scope by a considerable extent; it is, in many ways, a far more ambitious work in both its range and its politics. For one thing, he expands his analysis of inequality beyond the major Western economies that constituted much of his earlier focus. He unpacks the concentration of wealth in colonial and slaveholding societies like British-occupied India, French-controlled Algeria, and prerevolutionary Haiti (which was, in 1780, the world’s most unequal society, according to Piketty). Making stops in apartheid-era South Africa and contemporary Brazil, he also looks at the concentration of wealth—or lack thereof—in the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.
This journey is not an abstract undertaking. As in his previous book, Piketty’s quest to quantify and track inequality is grounded in a rigorous analysis of data (much of it tax returns but also censuses and government budgets). In Capital and Ideology, he also seeks to better explain how systems of inequality persist and justify themselves. In what is ultimately as much a work of history as of economics, Piketty wants to take “ideology seriously.” Modern economics, he suggests, can shed light on an ultraspecific set of trends—say, how tax cuts for high-income earners affect wealth distribution and the gap between wage growth and productivity—but the dismal science often struggles to supply a larger picture of how these policies came into being, why they last, or how they operate across borders and regions. To truly understand inequality, he posits, one must think globally. And to think globally, one must also turn to politics—the politics of both the past and the future—and the ideological frameworks that justify social arrangements.
Piketty begins his story with Europe’s “ternary” or “trifunctional” societies: feudal regimes in which the nobility, the clergy, and commoners all played rigidly defined roles. This system of rights and obligations began collapsing in the 16th century—most dramatically in France in the 18th century, where a revolution ushered in an awesome expansion of individual property rights. While the uprising was fueled in part by the promise of égalité and fraternité, these ideals fell largely by the wayside after the revolution. As Piketty shows, by the late 19th century, France was even more unequal than it was under the ancien régime.
The inequality in postrevolutionary Europe continued to increase until the early 20th century. Private sector wealth tumbled during World War I and the Great Depression, but it took an even larger global conflict for an alternative political framework to emerge. As states responded to the chaos of World War II, they moved quickly to take over key sectors of the economy; they also prolonged recent experiments with various types of taxes and granted new rights to workers. As a result, in France during the postwar years, the top 10 percent’s stranglehold on wealth fell even further, as it did elsewhere in Europe. Around the same time in Soviet Russia, inequality remained even lower. Once slouching into rampant material disparities, many countries were now able to more fully realize the promise of equality and fraternity. The “proprietarian societies” (which Goldhammer helpfully translates as “ownership societies”) that had come to dominate much of modern history proved to be not the natural and inevitable outcome of market forces but the result of specific decisions that prioritized individual property rights—decisions, moreover, that could be reversed. “Inequality,” Piketty says, “is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political.” After these ownership societies entered into a state of crisis in the early 20th century, social democratic governments emerged that vowed to tackle inequality and place limits on property rights. They imposed or extended taxes on income (and in some cases, wealth) and expanded access to education and housing. Many pursued the nationalization of key industries and, in the German and Nordic cases, forced businesses to share power with workers through innovative “co-management” measures.
But the glory days didn’t last long. With an increasingly globalized economy came not just greater global inequality but greater domestic inequality as well. The European Union established a monetary federation, but it failed to achieve a fiscal or budgetary one—creating a situation today in which corporations can easily offshore and outsource production to the lowest bidder and the superrich can shelter their wealth with little pushback. Social democrats proved unable to adapt to these changing times and renew their platforms accordingly. Much the same happened in the United States: The conservative revolution ushered in a wave of deregulation and tax cuts, paving the way for the top 1 percent to amass more and more wealth while the American center-left failed to double down on its redistributive agenda and offer its base a convincing alternative. Today as a result, a “neo-proprietarian” order reigns supreme. Based in part on the values of the 19th century ownership societies, this order is also marked by an extreme form of meritocratic ideology, one that blames the poor for their struggles and idolizes billionaires for their success.
But if they stand so plainly against the collective interest, how do these proprietarian and neo-proprietarian societies sustain themselves in majoritarian systems? For Piketty, the answer is ideology. While Marx and Engels argued that the underlying material conditions and class structure of a given society held the key to understanding the resilience (or, for that matter, the fragility) of its political system, Piketty has a very different read on how authority reproduces itself. Class certainly influences the way people think, but so do other factors, from religious beliefs and a sense of national belonging to the seemingly random crises that occur throughout history, like famines and pandemics. Paradigm shifts are contingent on all of the above, not just on the formation of social classes or the tensions that arise among them. At the same time, in Piketty’s view, ruling ideologies are themselves more fluid than Marxist intellectuals have historically recognized. Justifications for who gets to own what are ever capable of change and compromise, depending on the actors behind them—evolving, fading, or regenerating.
For example, the 19th century proprietarian order had its roots, Piketty argues, in what was originally a very simple goal: the separation of the state’s authority—the provision of security and laws and a monopoly on violence—from the individual’s right to hold and sell property. Making this separation was clear enough, but whether the state ought to then set limits on the latter remained an open question, as debates raged over whether to adopt land reforms to benefit small-scale farmers or impose progressive taxes on income or estates. In the end, the egalitarians lost out.
Piketty contends that this debate was settled through political choices—a marked contrast with both classical and neoclassical liberal economics, as well as classical Marxist economics, all of which tended to naturalize these changes as inevitable. Instead, a “fear of the void,” as Piketty puts it, produced by the democratic revolutions of the late 18th century helped usher in the sacralization of private property. Whereas the old trifunctional system was held together by religion—a critical role performed by the clergy—the order that emerged in its wake initially lacked a mechanism to provide a similar sense of institutional stability. Ultimately, this void was filled by a quasi-religious worship of property. The resulting proprietarian societies, while genuinely emancipatory for some, were disastrous for many others, evolving in the 19th century into deeply inegalitarian and dehumanizing systems. As Piketty notes, when these governments finally abolished slavery, they directed financial compensation not to the enslaved, who had been denied a wage for the entirety of their lives, but to the former slaveholders.
While the original proprietarian order had its roots in democratic revolutions, the neo-proprietarian order has a very different origin. It was born, Piketty asserts, largely as a response to the spread of social democracy and fueled by a sense that redistributive policies had gone too far. After the popular breakthroughs of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the fall of the Soviet Union only further entrenched the neo-proprietarians. Today’s dominant order, then, marks a return to some of the earliest capitalist values: glorification of the supposedly individual accomplishments of the superrich, systematic bashing of the poor in the name of meritocracy, and incessant warnings against regulation for fear of opening Pandora’s box. All of this has produced an intense backlash against even modest proposals to rein in property—notably by hindering governments’ ability to track the movement of wealth internationally.
While all of this will strike many readers as indisputably true, what may frustrate some is that Piketty never identifies a central force behind these world historical changes. There is no one motor, in his account, driving these conflicts forward. While Marx privileged class formation and class tensions, Piketty appears committed to unpacking each of the major transformations he identifies on its own terms, insisting on a multitude of alternative paths that might have been followed at any given moment. Some may find this approach nuanced; others may be put off by its unwillingness to dig in and take sides. The closest we get to a unifying theory of change comes at the book’s conclusion, when he turns to an oft-cited proclamation by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” “Their assertion remains pertinent,” Piketty writes, “but now that this book is done, I am tempted to reformulate it as follows: the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of the struggle of ideologies and the quest for justice.”
It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like Marx and Engels’s original, and yet Piketty’s version does have a certain political urgency to it. Capitalism may encourage the concentration of wealth, and it may well be plainly unfair, but these aren’t sufficient conditions for an alternative to emerge, especially when the political and cultural arguments for the status quo are so widely accepted. To push back, therefore, we need to propose our own more egalitarian visions of society and rally large numbers of people behind them. A more just order is possible, though it remains conditional on our actions—like any other regime change in history.
The challenges to winning people over to a more egalitarian vision of society become clearest when Piketty turns to the origins of our current impasse. Refreshingly, these are not presented as some inevitable consequence of globalization or technological progress. Instead, they’re the product of a series of misguided—albeit reversible—political choices. Examining decades of voting patterns, Piketty shows how the historically center-left parties in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom evolved from what he calls “workers’ parties” into “parties of the educated.” In the period immediately following World War II, the various parties of the center-left—whether the Socialists in coalition with the Gaullists or the Democratic Party under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman—all won the bulk of their support from voters with lower levels of education and income.
These parties, however, began to lose their working-class base in the 1960s and ’70s (and in the United States’ case, the 1950s), and by the 1990s, the old class cleavages had disappeared, with many working-class people feeling cast out from their traditional political homes and either voting for right-wing parties or not voting at all. For Piketty, then, it’s not a simple question of the center-left parties losing ground to the right; they also lost ground with their own base. A look at the coalitions behind François Hollande in France and Jeremy Corbyn’s strong showing in the UK in 2017 only clarifies this trend. Their candidacies garnered much greater support among the most-educated voters than with the least-educated ones.
How did such a dramatic reversal come about? A common hypothesis is that white working-class voters were increasingly receptive to the nativist and racist ideas on the rise. This may be partly true, but it does not account for the losses and diminished enthusiasm among other working-class voters at the same time. The bigger reason, Piketty argues, is that social democratic parties abandoned the cause of wealth redistribution. By accepting the terms of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, the historical parties of the left embraced a much more scaled-back view of what constitutes a fair society and lost the faith of their working-class base. Placing a higher value on things like educational achievement, public access to culture, and somewhat higher taxes on the wealthy, the members of what Piketty dubs the “Brahmin left” gave up on the very redistributive politics that had won support among a low-to-middle-income electorate.
As the parties of the left lost their historical base, Piketty continues, right-wing parties began to absorb parts of it. They continued to defend the same elite economic interests as before, but they also attracted many white working-class voters, weaponizing questions of race and identity to win them over. This “merchant right,” Piketty argues, became the high-income counterpart to the Brahmin left and proved to be better at attracting certain segments of the working-class vote.
To be sure, this balance is deeply unstable, as shown by France’s most recent presidential race, which saw the emergence of both a rejuvenated left-wing bloc and an energized far right—only for a Brahmin liberal to win office. The ongoing battles in the Democratic Party illustrate similar tensions, with figures like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg defending the values of the Brahmin left against an insurgent wing demanding that the party reverse its hands-off approach to inequality and once again represent the interests of working people. While Piketty completed his book before the US primaries began, it’s not hard to imagine what he might say about the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. Though it clearly wasn’t enough to win him the Democratic nomination, Sanders’s popularity underscores the value of debating the state’s role in regulating and, yes, managing the economy.
In the last 70 pages of Capital and Ideology, Piketty outlines what a “participatory socialism” in the 21st century might look like. The first pillar of his program, “social ownership,” involves curtailing the influence of managers and shareholders and boosting the decision-making power of employees. Under his proposal, workers would receive half the seats on companies’ boards of directors, with a ceiling imposed on the voting rights of investors composing the other half, thereby limiting the power of large shareholders. The second pillar, “temporary private ownership,” involves enacting a set of progressive and, ideally, internationally coordinated taxes on property, inheritance, and income. All of this is complemented by what Piketty calls “inheritance for all,” a lump sum grant to citizens once they reach the age of 25. (He suggests the sum be set at just over $130,000 in France today.) He stresses that these proposals are an initial blueprint more than anything else, a vision to be tinkered with according to circumstances rather than a political program to be followed to the letter. “Justice,” he writes, “must always be conceived as the result of ongoing collective deliberation.”
While it may seem self-evident in the United States to call this program socialist, Piketty’s use of the S-word in France is a bit more fraught. Tarnished by decades of compromise and failure to live up to the ideas in its platform, in particular during Hollande’s time in office, the Socialist Party has been part of the Brahmin left as much as any center-left party and has lost much of its support on the national level. In response to the party’s many letdowns, its rivals on the French left today often avoid talk of socialism, appealing instead to the values of humanism, solidarity, and ecology, or—in the case of Mélenchon’s movement—calling for a citizens’ revolution. But what else is one supposed to call an international project that involves radically overhauling property rights in favor of ordinary people? As a political tradition stretching back more than 150 years, the idea of socialism still seems a worthy goal, whether fully attainable or not, and its rich history offers lessons, warts and all. In Europe, that means owning the victories, mistakes, and betrayals of the past, while in the United States, it means signaling a clear desire to leave behind a system that’s increasingly unpopular and unsustainable.
The emphasis on internationalism in Capital and Ideology is also important. In recent years, Europe has seen a rise in nationalism. As parties like Alternative for Germany, France’s National Rally, and Italy’s Lega have discovered, refocusing popular ire from large-scale property owners to bureaucrats in Brussels can pay handsome political dividends. In pursuit of very different goals, some on the left (most notably Mélenchon) have also directed much of their venom toward the EU. Its suffocating budgetary restrictions and democratic deficit are worthy of denunciation, no doubt, but sometimes the left-populist criticism can feel cheap—a diversion from other pressing issues, if not an excuse for old-fashioned flag-waving. The bigger question either way, assuming one rules out leaving the EU, is how to change it. Piketty calls for cross-border cooperation, and this should be obvious. Whether or not his entire platform is achievable in the short term, the reality is that anything close to it would all but require help from abroad to succeed: a bevy of allied countries adopting common policies, collectively disobeying certain EU rules, and investing political capital in revising treaties. As the coronavirus crisis has shown, Brussels’s diktats can be broken under the right circumstances and with sufficient political will. With countries dramatically ramping up their deficit spending to protect their citizens, the EU has suspended requirements for its members to reduce their deficits and limit their debt-to-GDP ratios.
As the world reels from the horrifying devastation of the pandemic, the centrality of an internationalist politics becomes all the more urgent. Economic and material security cannot be secured in one country alone, nor can a participatory socialism defend itself from global problems, whether epidemiological or economic. In certain left-wing and environmentalist circles, the crisis has reignited criticism of international trade and sparked calls to promote more local production of goods and services. Rewiring global supply chains is a worthy goal, but even this would require international collaboration, as would any hopes of boosting working-class power, redistributing vast amounts of wealth, and submitting the economy to democratic oversight. There is no way to durably achieve these aims on a solely national scale.
Of course, as the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic and the global recession set in, there is no guarantee that Piketty’s “neo-proprietarian order” will not come out even stronger. Already the pace of change is breathtakingly fast. While most European states have agreed to cover large shares of the wages lost by workers and as some consider outright takeovers of certain companies, EU leaders have also refused to come to the direct aid of Italy and Spain, revealing their stubborn attachment to the eurozone’s flawed architecture. The United States, meanwhile, has limited its relief to a bailout that includes $1,200 in direct payments to millions of Americans but also sends hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations, with precious few strings attached. Against this backdrop, Piketty’s proposals don’t seem far-fetched, but the political nature of achieving them appears all the clearer. Things could change in the coming months, but without a wave of working-class pressure and movements that fundamentally threaten the leaders and parties in charge, the making of the post-coronavirus world will be left to the same ruling elites that brought us this mess in the first place.
Ironically, when it comes to enacting “participatory socialism,” Piketty’s reading of history suggests that radicals who scoff at electoral politics may have a point. Rather than through the ballot box alone, Capital and Ideology suggests, the great ideological transformations of the past often resulted from crises that unmade the previous order: recessions, wars, and revolutions. We appear to be at such a tipping point right now. But one also wonders what gets left out by a vision of history that privileges ideas to such a large extent. At its most extreme, it can obscure the fact that there are certain groups that simply aren’t interested in a good-faith debate—not because they haven’t been convinced yet but because they have a vested material interest in not listening at all. No matter how sensible the counterargument may be, most billionaires will oppose wealth taxes and most bosses pay hikes. Ongoing debates about economic aid in Europe have underscored the same point. Despite all the damage they risk inflicting on the future of the EU, despite the fact that some of their closest neighbors are grappling with humanitarian catastrophe, the business elites of Germany and the Netherlands continue to oppose direct cash subsidies for Italy and Spain along with even modest proposals to issue jointly backed European debt, all because existing arrangements offer them a slight competitive advantage. Immediate material self-interest, it seems, often trumps the more rational long-term choice.
Piketty’s latest work offers us plenty of valuable ideas. But in the end, one can’t help but wonder if he underplays the extent to which individuals’ access to and relationship with wealth (their position in the property regime, one might say) influences how they look at the world and engage in politics. Ultimately, the interests that unite the top one-tenth of 1 percent of wealth holders may be a bit stronger than Piketty suggests, not unlike the ties that bind the bottom 60 percent or so. Piketty’s views on this mark a clear departure from the Marxist conception of class, yet his open-ended vision of historical change still offers space for popular agency. After all, whatever label one prefers—the “working class,” “the multitude,” “the people,” or something else—it remains up to us to build the movements and organizations required to make a world better suited to human needs. And perhaps someday, the myths we tell ourselves about why things are the way they are will be considered every bit as cruel and irrational as those of the past and will cease to be specters that haunt our present.