Predictiably for a Parisian academic, Piketty interprets the increasing levels of inequality in our society in doctrinaire Marxist terms and classic question begging style: capital gets more and more concentrated over time because it compounds at a higher rate than GDP growth (where does it say that it has to do this? are you making an interest rate forecast or revealing scripture?) and ultimately results in massive inequality, chaos and I guess Bolshie revolutions or at least some salutary Guillotiningss of a Koch brother or two.
At Last! After 100 million dead and the collapse of regime after regime I am now vindicated by two....French academic economists. Wait, that can't be right. |
Although it is fun interacting with neo Marxist ideas that actually have data and analysis behind them rather than dancing yet another version of the Old Trotsky-Trot that always makes me want to take an ice pick and plunge...... Well anyway, so how then should we live? or what should we do about all of the meanies out there? Clearly all of BHO's minwage and labor standards small ball is irrelevant and manipulative if not actively malicious in that cool kids in high school inviting the dorks to the big party except that there wasn't one sort of way.
In contrast Piketty says we should tax the Bejesus out of wealth and unearned incomes - go all Clement Attlee on their asses. Which is charming hailing from a France whose rich, talented and ambitious have been launching themselves at high velocity across the English channel so much that London is the second biggest French city. Personally I think they should go back to the popular front days, create a shadowy, conspiratorial party, pretend that they're in the majority and seize power (in lots of heroic poses so you make those kick-ass posters), killing and looting the rich and trashing the country. It is a sure fire way to reduce income inequality: destroy the institutions that produce the wealth to begin with.
I hazard to mention this because Left Bank intellectuals like Piketty and Saenz might take me literally.
PS: it is a testament to the shallowness and intellectual poverty of the American Left that they've outsourced the substance of what - now that they've 'saved' healthcare - is their 'numero uno' issue to Bolshie garlic eaters. And I thought everyone said BHO was brilliant Harvard grad or something.
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