Education and Inequality: Bowles & Gintis’ Schooling in Capitalist America and Pikettys Capital and Ideology, so far so close

This paper compares Thomas Piketty’s Capital and Ideology and Bowles and Gintis’ Schooling in Capitalist America, examining their views on the role of education in perpetuating economic inequality. Despite irreconcilable theoretical foundations, both works converge on a critical conclusion: education intensifies rather than mitigates inequality, particularly through intergenerational wealth transmission and hypocritical meritocracy. With regards to intergenerational inequality, we discuss its connection with the change in the voting pattern observed by Piketty in Western social-democratic nations, where left-of-centre parties have become less interested in the most disadvantaged classes over the past several decades. The paper also identifies key limitations shared by the framework of both books, including an inadequate analysis of fiscal austerity and demographic change as drivers of educational inequality. Finally, both works advocate socialist solutions-participatory socialism (for Piketty) and revolutionary change (for Bowles and Gintis)–to dismantle power imbalances that generate inequality.