Department of Anthropology, LSE, London, UK.
Department of Development Studies, SOAS University of London, London, UK.
Br J Sociol. 2021 Jan;72(1):93-105. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12815.
Piketty's propositions for arresting inequality are discussed through the lens of racism/casteism. We focus on the case of India's George Floyds-the persistence of caste and tribe oppression under economic growth in India-through the insights of our long-term ethnographic research. We show that inequalities are intimately tied to dynamics of capitalist accumulation in which racial/ethnic/caste/tribe and gender difference is crucial. We argue for an analysis that truly integrates ideology and the dynamics of political economy. The wider implications, we argue are political; they lie in the question of what is to be done. Despite his ambitions to decenter economics, Piketty remains trapped in the logic of economics for what he proposes are essentially economic reforms within capitalism. Moreover, ideological change cannot be a matter of choice only, and cannot be challenged solely at the level of ideas around economic inequality. It will also have to be fought as a direct contest of oppressive ideologies such as racism, casteism, and patriarchy, leading to new counter-hegemonic positions. We will argue that this takes us from a global history of ideology to a global anthropology of praxis. A first step is to genuinely center conversations with disciplines like anthropology, sociology, and subaltern history studying people and voices from below and from the margins, and the perspectives of scholars and activists from below and from the margins.
通过种族主义/种姓制度的视角来讨论皮凯蒂关于遏制不平等的主张。我们通过长期的民族志研究的见解，聚焦于印度的乔治·弗洛伊德案例——印度经济增长下种姓和部落压迫的持续存在。我们表明，不平等与资本主义积累的动态密切相关，其中种族/民族/种姓/部落和性别差异至关重要。我们主张进行真正整合意识形态和政治经济学动态的分析。我们认为更广泛的影响是政治性的；它们在于要做什么的问题。尽管皮凯蒂雄心勃勃地将经济学去中心化，但他仍然被困在经济学的逻辑中，因为他所提出的基本上是资本主义内部的经济改革。此外，意识形态的变化不能仅仅是一种选择的问题，也不能仅仅在围绕经济不平等的思想层面上受到挑战。它还必须作为对种族主义、种姓制度和父权制等压迫性意识形态的直接斗争来进行，从而形成新的反霸权立场。我们将认为，这使我们从全球意识形态史走向全球实践人类学。第一步是真正将对话集中在像人类学、社会学和底层历史这样的学科上，研究来自底层和边缘的人和声音，以及来自底层和边缘的学者和活动家的观点。
