In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Thomas Piketty is not the anti-capitalist radical that his critics fear.
"The market economy," he tells me at the bar of the St Regis Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, "is a system that has a lot of merit." (The location was chosen by the publicist for the English edition of his book; she admitted to me that perhaps it was a little too "top one percent," but it fit everyone's schedule nicely.)
Piketty is very French, with several buttons on his shirt undone, a fairly thick accent, and a Bourdieu reference ready to drop in response to a question about whether economists overemphasize mathematical models over empirical analysis. His book, Capital in the 21st Century (see our short guide), is being widely hailed as the most important economics volume of the decade and this week became the top-selling book on Amazon. It provides intellectual heft for some of the activist energy around Occupy Wall Street and other efforts to advance a post-Obama left-wing politics. Its core thesis is that capitalism, if left untamed, suffers from a fundamental flaw and will inevitably lead to a growing concentration of economic power into the hands of those lucky enough to inherit large sums of wealth from their parents, a state Piketty calls "patrimonial capitalism."
National Review and The Nation rarely agree on much, but both the right-wing and the left-wing magazines have reviewed Piketty as part of a revival of Marxist thinking.
It's probably no coincidence that Americans see Piketty — a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales — as more left-wing than he sees himself. The French political debate is considerably broader than the American one (I recall a dinner a few years back at which a senior member of what's considered the moderate wing of France's currently-in-power Socialist Party told the room that the problem with American Democrats is they don't see the need to "transcend capitalism entirely.") So the view that capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80 percent on wage income supplemented by a modest tax on net wealth is not necessarily a radical viewpoint there. During our conversation he expressed admiration for the "responsible" attitude of German labor unions toward the needs of the firms they work for, presumably in contrast to the counterproductively militant attitudes of French labor.
Indeed, he is at pains to stress that he's not even really a madcap tax raiser or an enemy of wealth accumulation. "My point," he says, "is not to increase taxation of wealth. It's actually to reduce taxation of wealth for most people."
I gotta hand it to the French to have an avowed Marxist really telling us what he thinks will fix the economy. "The market economy is a system that has a lot of merit" and "capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80%" and a wealth tax. Not for revenue per se, but we gotta blast the wealthy or inequality overtakes us all!
Good, you didnt actually read a single word of it. Wanne try that again?
Mince words if you want, call him a socialist. With semantics we can loop all the way back around that true communism was never realized etc etc. I do know he advocates a 80% top tax rate i.e. a very high rate on high incomes. He claims to be favorably disposed towards the concept of a market economy. His confiscatory regime is exactly antagonistic to a market economy and that's what I find so laughable. Buy and sell goods on the market and earn your profit, but don't be too successful at it, otherwise we're going to get ya!
It's been plastered over the news for quite a while now. He was feted by White House advisers. He wants to put an end to those high incomes in service of inequality. Now Gorsameth, unless your primary academic understandings are in your profession of insult comic, perhaps you'd like to comment on Pikkety and America's economic or political situation?
Except the entire point of his book is that those that have done nothing to earn their wealth (by inheritance or sheer luck) are able to keep it. Even in the case that they do earn it, however, they still pose a risk to the system by holding the power to influence the government (local, state, and federal) and communities to give them an unfair advantage and maintain their wealth.
How common is it to be rich just from inheritance? It seems like a lot of rich people got that way by working like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. I know that's anecdotal, which is partly why I'm asking.
You probably can't be super-mega-rich like Carlos Slim, Warren Buffett, or Bill Gates without some talent in corruption, making money from money, or monopoly. You should be asking how many people are born with $10M in inheritance vs people who earn a net worth of $10M from substantially less.
I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
On April 25 2014 10:13 Wolfstan wrote: I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
Credit where credit is due- it's impressive for the parents to be so successful that their children are set for life: their success is admirable. I see nothing admirable in the mere chance that one is born to such people. They didn't do anything.
I'm not for inheritance taxes, but I wouldn't call the inheritor "admirable" for doing nothing. It would be the benefactors.
Edit: if you mean strictly to say that those who earn enough that they can stop working, then that's different. But that's not what the conversation is about, so I'm assuming you mean "unearned" wealth passed on to future generations.
On April 25 2014 10:13 Wolfstan wrote: I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
You think living off of social programs because you are poor, sick, or old is deplorable?
Postal Workers Protest At Staples Over Shift In Jobs
U.S. postal workers took to the streets Thursday to protest in front of Staples office supply stores around the country. At issue is a decision to open Postal Service counters in Staples stores — something they say is siphoning away union jobs.
The postal workers' grievances come as their employer faces pressures to find new avenues of business. ...
Postal Workers Protest At Staples Over Shift In Jobs
U.S. postal workers took to the streets Thursday to protest in front of Staples office supply stores around the country. At issue is a decision to open Postal Service counters in Staples stores — something they say is siphoning away union jobs.
The postal workers' grievances come as their employer faces pressures to find new avenues of business. ...
Unfortunately for the USPS workers they're in a dying industry. Things like this are going to happen more and more.
They aren't in a dying industry moreso they are the latest target in the GOP tactic of starving the beast. Hell UPS, FedEx and other logistical services use USPS that generate hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
Postal Workers Protest At Staples Over Shift In Jobs
U.S. postal workers took to the streets Thursday to protest in front of Staples office supply stores around the country. At issue is a decision to open Postal Service counters in Staples stores — something they say is siphoning away union jobs.
The postal workers' grievances come as their employer faces pressures to find new avenues of business. ...
Unfortunately for the USPS workers they're in a dying industry. Things like this are going to happen more and more.
They aren't in a dying industry moreso they are the latest target in the GOP tactic of starving the beast. Hell UPS, FedEx and other logistical services use USPS that generate hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
Parcel service does fine, but regular mail delivery is declining quite a bit.
On April 25 2014 11:22 coverpunch wrote: Just out of curiosity since inequality debates have been going on: how many of you guys have actually read Piketty?
I haven't read the whole book yet but I have listened to him quite a bit and read excerpts. I cant help but think of this video every time inequality comes up though
Postal Workers Protest At Staples Over Shift In Jobs
U.S. postal workers took to the streets Thursday to protest in front of Staples office supply stores around the country. At issue is a decision to open Postal Service counters in Staples stores — something they say is siphoning away union jobs.
The postal workers' grievances come as their employer faces pressures to find new avenues of business. ...
Unfortunately for the USPS workers they're in a dying industry. Things like this are going to happen more and more.
They aren't in a dying industry moreso they are the latest target in the GOP tactic of starving the beast. Hell UPS, FedEx and other logistical services use USPS that generate hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
Parcel service does fine, but regular mail delivery is declining quite a bit.
Does USPS do parcel delivery? Does Staples do parcel delivery?
On April 25 2014 10:13 Wolfstan wrote: I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
Credit where credit is due- it's impressive for the parents to be so successful that their children are set for life: their success is admirable. I see nothing admirable in the mere chance that one is born to such people. They didn't do anything.
I'm not for inheritance taxes, but I wouldn't call the inheritor "admirable" for doing nothing. It would be the benefactors.
Edit: if you mean strictly to say that those who earn enough that they can stop working, then that's different. But that's not what the conversation is about, so I'm assuming you mean "unearned" wealth passed on to future generations.
I think 3rd parties differentiating and judging whether the wealth was earned or not is a good idea because birth lotteries are not palatable for the masses. Should a farmer be allowed to keep the farm in the family? Is a small business owner able to let his son run the business? How about a Grandmother leaving valuable heirlooms to her granddaughter? What is those heirlooms are comic books? A rent collecting apartment building? A dividend paying stock portfolio? Where do you draw the line?
On April 25 2014 10:13 Wolfstan wrote: I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
You think living off of social programs because you are poor, sick, or old is deplorable?
Deplorable is probably too strong a word, but it is still less desirable than living off investment income.
On April 25 2014 10:13 Wolfstan wrote: I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
Credit where credit is due- it's impressive for the parents to be so successful that their children are set for life: their success is admirable. I see nothing admirable in the mere chance that one is born to such people. They didn't do anything.
I'm not for inheritance taxes, but I wouldn't call the inheritor "admirable" for doing nothing. It would be the benefactors.
Edit: if you mean strictly to say that those who earn enough that they can stop working, then that's different. But that's not what the conversation is about, so I'm assuming you mean "unearned" wealth passed on to future generations.
I think 3rd parties differentiating and judging whether the wealth was earned or not because birth lotteries are not palatable for the masses. Should a farmer be allowed to keep the farm in the family? Is a small business owner able to let his son run the business? How about a Grandmother leaving valuable heirlooms to her granddaughter? What is those heirlooms are comic books? A rent collecting apartment building? A dividend paying stock portfolio? Where do you draw the line?
My point was that if you are born to a rich person (which is obviously fine), and they leave 1 million (or more, also fine) that doesn't make the person who inherited it "admirable." They didn't do anything to make it that way.
I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, I'm questioning you in particular on this idea that it's "admirable" to come into wealth- unless you weren't talking about inheritance. It's good to not live off the state, yes. But the mere fact that one is born into wealth doesn't make that person any good at all- it's what they end up doing with it that will decide if they are "admirable."
On April 25 2014 10:13 Wolfstan wrote: I think living off assets you own without having to work is admirable. I also think living off social programs without having to work because you are poor, lazy, sick or old is deplorable. Why is stealing from the rich and redistributing it to the poor an acceptable goal because "equality"?
You think living off of social programs because you are poor, sick, or old is deplorable?
Deplorable is probably too strong a word, but it is still less desirable than living off investment income.
On April 25 2014 06:32 WhiteDog wrote: Piketty is not a marxist, not at all. Actually that's one of the most sound critic I've read about his book : he basically empirically shows that Marx was right (more than Kuznets or anyone else at least) but completly discard communism in the introduction (he says that he has no nostalgia for communism and basically imply that it always lead to totalitarism).
On April 25 2014 05:58 Boblion wrote: Taking economic lessons from the French. Good god America is truly doomed.
French economy is actually quite lively, with Olivier Blanchard, Esther Duflo and now Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.
Piketty is right when he talks about the inequalities and the accumulation of capital. The problem with him and all the guys like Sam or IgnE is that they have 0 clue about Human history. The guy seriously thinks that the system which generated all those inequalities can change itself. It can't. All those pseudo mathematicians thinking that some new little numbers will do the trick lol. Like if we are all functions or something. To make a real change you always need some Human blood. Or lies. Or both.
The hilarious fact is that (at least in France) the underclass is not exploited (not in the classical sense). They are PAID and that's why they don't even have the energy to start a revolution.
Piketty was the posterboy of the socialists during the 2012 campaign ("omygod we got an Econ teacher who is famous in America !") but he had absolutly zero influence on the current Economic policies of the French socialist governement lol.
If all this talk about inequalities and stuff was serious why we are not invading Malta, Monaco, the Isle of Man etc... where all the wealthy people are hidding their assets ? No instead we go to A-Stan and Mali to bring them "our" own vision of "equality" lol Just think about it...
Thomas Piketty is not the anti-capitalist radical that his critics fear.
"The market economy," he tells me at the bar of the St Regis Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, "is a system that has a lot of merit." (The location was chosen by the publicist for the English edition of his book; she admitted to me that perhaps it was a little too "top one percent," but it fit everyone's schedule nicely.)
Piketty is very French, with several buttons on his shirt undone, a fairly thick accent, and a Bourdieu reference ready to drop in response to a question about whether economists overemphasize mathematical models over empirical analysis. His book, Capital in the 21st Century (see our short guide), is being widely hailed as the most important economics volume of the decade and this week became the top-selling book on Amazon. It provides intellectual heft for some of the activist energy around Occupy Wall Street and other efforts to advance a post-Obama left-wing politics. Its core thesis is that capitalism, if left untamed, suffers from a fundamental flaw and will inevitably lead to a growing concentration of economic power into the hands of those lucky enough to inherit large sums of wealth from their parents, a state Piketty calls "patrimonial capitalism."
National Review and The Nation rarely agree on much, but both the right-wing and the left-wing magazines have reviewed Piketty as part of a revival of Marxist thinking.
It's probably no coincidence that Americans see Piketty — a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales — as more left-wing than he sees himself. The French political debate is considerably broader than the American one (I recall a dinner a few years back at which a senior member of what's considered the moderate wing of France's currently-in-power Socialist Party told the room that the problem with American Democrats is they don't see the need to "transcend capitalism entirely.") So the view that capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80 percent on wage income supplemented by a modest tax on net wealth is not necessarily a radical viewpoint there. During our conversation he expressed admiration for the "responsible" attitude of German labor unions toward the needs of the firms they work for, presumably in contrast to the counterproductively militant attitudes of French labor.
Indeed, he is at pains to stress that he's not even really a madcap tax raiser or an enemy of wealth accumulation. "My point," he says, "is not to increase taxation of wealth. It's actually to reduce taxation of wealth for most people."
I gotta hand it to the French to have an avowed Marxist really telling us what he thinks will fix the economy. "The market economy is a system that has a lot of merit" and "capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80%" and a wealth tax. Not for revenue per se, but we gotta blast the wealthy or inequality overtakes us all!
Good, you didnt actually read a single word of it. Wanne try that again?
Mince words if you want, call him a socialist. With semantics we can loop all the way back around that true communism was never realized etc etc. I do know he advocates a 80% top tax rate i.e. a very high rate on high incomes. He claims to be favorably disposed towards the concept of a market economy. His confiscatory regime is exactly antagonistic to a market economy and that's what I find so laughable. Buy and sell goods on the market and earn your profit, but don't be too successful at it, otherwise we're going to get ya!
It's been plastered over the news for quite a while now. He was feted by White House advisers. He wants to put an end to those high incomes in service of inequality. Now Gorsameth, unless your primary academic understandings are in your profession of insult comic, perhaps you'd like to comment on Pikkety and America's economic or political situation?
Except the entire point of his book is that those that have done nothing to earn their wealth (by inheritance or sheer luck) are able to keep it. Even in the case that they do earn it, however, they still pose a risk to the system by holding the power to influence the government (local, state, and federal) and communities to give them an unfair advantage and maintain their wealth.
So you're saying he's declaring war against the lottery of birth?
On April 25 2014 08:23 oneofthem wrote: danglars can you explain the concept of economic rent to us.
Perhaps you will connect it to his argument and/or make your own. Amongst the abundance of invective and hyperbole here, there simply isn't time to play cute games with you to try to find your points. However, let me leave you with this: should you actually desire an explanation of an economic term, perhaps google.com will supply you one?
it becomes difficult to 'argue' with you if you don't know the basic structure of the arguments being presented.
It's hard to know where you agree with Piketty and where you might diverge. You on board with his characterization of the millions of petits rentiers? You also agree with a proposed fix to those earning more than 500k/1mil, to put an end to such incomes (book quote)? How about that middling (I laugh as I type this) 50-60% rate on 200k types, or the annual wealth tax up to 10%? The first thing that comes to mind when I read his fixes his analysis is that this is a man longing for utopia. In his rewriting of the Soviet experiment, I see some wishful thinking for throwing off the chains of the common man ... without somehow substituting more and/or worse.
Thomas Piketty is not the anti-capitalist radical that his critics fear.
"The market economy," he tells me at the bar of the St Regis Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, "is a system that has a lot of merit." (The location was chosen by the publicist for the English edition of his book; she admitted to me that perhaps it was a little too "top one percent," but it fit everyone's schedule nicely.)
Piketty is very French, with several buttons on his shirt undone, a fairly thick accent, and a Bourdieu reference ready to drop in response to a question about whether economists overemphasize mathematical models over empirical analysis. His book, Capital in the 21st Century (see our short guide), is being widely hailed as the most important economics volume of the decade and this week became the top-selling book on Amazon. It provides intellectual heft for some of the activist energy around Occupy Wall Street and other efforts to advance a post-Obama left-wing politics. Its core thesis is that capitalism, if left untamed, suffers from a fundamental flaw and will inevitably lead to a growing concentration of economic power into the hands of those lucky enough to inherit large sums of wealth from their parents, a state Piketty calls "patrimonial capitalism."
National Review and The Nation rarely agree on much, but both the right-wing and the left-wing magazines have reviewed Piketty as part of a revival of Marxist thinking.
It's probably no coincidence that Americans see Piketty — a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales — as more left-wing than he sees himself. The French political debate is considerably broader than the American one (I recall a dinner a few years back at which a senior member of what's considered the moderate wing of France's currently-in-power Socialist Party told the room that the problem with American Democrats is they don't see the need to "transcend capitalism entirely.") So the view that capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80 percent on wage income supplemented by a modest tax on net wealth is not necessarily a radical viewpoint there. During our conversation he expressed admiration for the "responsible" attitude of German labor unions toward the needs of the firms they work for, presumably in contrast to the counterproductively militant attitudes of French labor.
Indeed, he is at pains to stress that he's not even really a madcap tax raiser or an enemy of wealth accumulation. "My point," he says, "is not to increase taxation of wealth. It's actually to reduce taxation of wealth for most people."
I gotta hand it to the French to have an avowed Marxist really telling us what he thinks will fix the economy. "The market economy is a system that has a lot of merit" and "capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80%" and a wealth tax. Not for revenue per se, but we gotta blast the wealthy or inequality overtakes us all!
Good, you didnt actually read a single word of it. Wanne try that again?
Mince words if you want, call him a socialist. With semantics we can loop all the way back around that true communism was never realized etc etc. I do know he advocates a 80% top tax rate i.e. a very high rate on high incomes. He claims to be favorably disposed towards the concept of a market economy. His confiscatory regime is exactly antagonistic to a market economy and that's what I find so laughable. Buy and sell goods on the market and earn your profit, but don't be too successful at it, otherwise we're going to get ya!
It's been plastered over the news for quite a while now. He was feted by White House advisers. He wants to put an end to those high incomes in service of inequality. Now Gorsameth, unless your primary academic understandings are in your profession of insult comic, perhaps you'd like to comment on Pikkety and America's economic or political situation?
Except the entire point of his book is that those that have done nothing to earn their wealth (by inheritance or sheer luck) are able to keep it. Even in the case that they do earn it, however, they still pose a risk to the system by holding the power to influence the government (local, state, and federal) and communities to give them an unfair advantage and maintain their wealth.
So you're saying he's declaring war against the lottery of birth?
On April 25 2014 08:23 oneofthem wrote: danglars can you explain the concept of economic rent to us.
Perhaps you will connect it to his argument and/or make your own. Amongst the abundance of invective and hyperbole here, there simply isn't time to play cute games with you to try to find your points. However, let me leave you with this: should you actually desire an explanation of an economic term, perhaps google.com will supply you one?
it becomes difficult to 'argue' with you if you don't know the basic structure of the arguments being presented.
It's hard to know where you agree with Piketty and where you might diverge. You on board with his characterization of the millions of petits rentiers? You also agree with a proposed fix to those earning more than 500k/1mil, to put an end to such incomes (book quote)? How about that middling (I laugh as I type this) 50-60% rate on 200k types, or the annual wealth tax up to 10%? The first thing that comes to mind when I read his fixes his analysis is that this is a man longing for utopia. In his rewriting of the Soviet experiment, I see some wishful thinking for throwing off the chains of the common man ... without somehow substituting more and/or worse.
It seems to me that this is the entire problem with the Left's idea- the state is ultimately run by fallible, finite human beings who, even if they could know exactly how to fix the problem, wouldn't necessarily want to. Therefore, any expansion and increase of centralized authority (be it to individuals or groups) just quickens the gravity-like attraction between power and totalitarianism. And like gravity, the force always exists, but if you are moving fast enough at the right altitude, you can counter it- but never be free of it. If I may torture the analogy some more, it appears to me that liberalism mistakes the fact that one floats in space with the idea that "gravity has almost no effect on me here." One must not stop accounting for its effects. That's why they complain about powergrabs, large corporations and inequality while at the same time supporting the growth of the most effective and corruptible vehicle for their fears to be realized- the government.
I don't question their motives, I just think their goal is unreachable.
Unless they can change who people are, it seems wiser to follow the guide of history: the centralizing of power eventually leads to the suppression of people's rights.
Thomas Piketty is not the anti-capitalist radical that his critics fear.
"The market economy," he tells me at the bar of the St Regis Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, "is a system that has a lot of merit." (The location was chosen by the publicist for the English edition of his book; she admitted to me that perhaps it was a little too "top one percent," but it fit everyone's schedule nicely.)
Piketty is very French, with several buttons on his shirt undone, a fairly thick accent, and a Bourdieu reference ready to drop in response to a question about whether economists overemphasize mathematical models over empirical analysis. His book, Capital in the 21st Century (see our short guide), is being widely hailed as the most important economics volume of the decade and this week became the top-selling book on Amazon. It provides intellectual heft for some of the activist energy around Occupy Wall Street and other efforts to advance a post-Obama left-wing politics. Its core thesis is that capitalism, if left untamed, suffers from a fundamental flaw and will inevitably lead to a growing concentration of economic power into the hands of those lucky enough to inherit large sums of wealth from their parents, a state Piketty calls "patrimonial capitalism."
National Review and The Nation rarely agree on much, but both the right-wing and the left-wing magazines have reviewed Piketty as part of a revival of Marxist thinking.
It's probably no coincidence that Americans see Piketty — a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales — as more left-wing than he sees himself. The French political debate is considerably broader than the American one (I recall a dinner a few years back at which a senior member of what's considered the moderate wing of France's currently-in-power Socialist Party told the room that the problem with American Democrats is they don't see the need to "transcend capitalism entirely.") So the view that capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80 percent on wage income supplemented by a modest tax on net wealth is not necessarily a radical viewpoint there. During our conversation he expressed admiration for the "responsible" attitude of German labor unions toward the needs of the firms they work for, presumably in contrast to the counterproductively militant attitudes of French labor.
Indeed, he is at pains to stress that he's not even really a madcap tax raiser or an enemy of wealth accumulation. "My point," he says, "is not to increase taxation of wealth. It's actually to reduce taxation of wealth for most people."
I gotta hand it to the French to have an avowed Marxist really telling us what he thinks will fix the economy. "The market economy is a system that has a lot of merit" and "capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80%" and a wealth tax. Not for revenue per se, but we gotta blast the wealthy or inequality overtakes us all!
Good, you didnt actually read a single word of it. Wanne try that again?
Mince words if you want, call him a socialist. With semantics we can loop all the way back around that true communism was never realized etc etc. I do know he advocates a 80% top tax rate i.e. a very high rate on high incomes. He claims to be favorably disposed towards the concept of a market economy. His confiscatory regime is exactly antagonistic to a market economy and that's what I find so laughable. Buy and sell goods on the market and earn your profit, but don't be too successful at it, otherwise we're going to get ya!
It's been plastered over the news for quite a while now. He was feted by White House advisers. He wants to put an end to those high incomes in service of inequality. Now Gorsameth, unless your primary academic understandings are in your profession of insult comic, perhaps you'd like to comment on Pikkety and America's economic or political situation?
Except the entire point of his book is that those that have done nothing to earn their wealth (by inheritance or sheer luck) are able to keep it. Even in the case that they do earn it, however, they still pose a risk to the system by holding the power to influence the government (local, state, and federal) and communities to give them an unfair advantage and maintain their wealth.
So you're saying he's declaring war against the lottery of birth?
On April 25 2014 08:23 oneofthem wrote: danglars can you explain the concept of economic rent to us.
Perhaps you will connect it to his argument and/or make your own. Amongst the abundance of invective and hyperbole here, there simply isn't time to play cute games with you to try to find your points. However, let me leave you with this: should you actually desire an explanation of an economic term, perhaps google.com will supply you one?
it becomes difficult to 'argue' with you if you don't know the basic structure of the arguments being presented.
It's hard to know where you agree with Piketty and where you might diverge. You on board with his characterization of the millions of petits rentiers? You also agree with a proposed fix to those earning more than 500k/1mil, to put an end to such incomes (book quote)? How about that middling (I laugh as I type this) 50-60% rate on 200k types, or the annual wealth tax up to 10%? The first thing that comes to mind when I read his fixes his analysis is that this is a man longing for utopia. In his rewriting of the Soviet experiment, I see some wishful thinking for throwing off the chains of the common man ... without somehow substituting more and/or worse.
What are you even talking about? We had higher marginal tax rates on that kind of income back in the 50s and 60s when we were fighting the Soviet menace. Are you laughing as tippy toes leave the ground and you float off into unreality? Invoking the spectre of "Soviet experiments" and failed utopias?
Thomas Piketty is not the anti-capitalist radical that his critics fear.
"The market economy," he tells me at the bar of the St Regis Hotel in downtown Washington, DC, "is a system that has a lot of merit." (The location was chosen by the publicist for the English edition of his book; she admitted to me that perhaps it was a little too "top one percent," but it fit everyone's schedule nicely.)
Piketty is very French, with several buttons on his shirt undone, a fairly thick accent, and a Bourdieu reference ready to drop in response to a question about whether economists overemphasize mathematical models over empirical analysis. His book, Capital in the 21st Century (see our short guide), is being widely hailed as the most important economics volume of the decade and this week became the top-selling book on Amazon. It provides intellectual heft for some of the activist energy around Occupy Wall Street and other efforts to advance a post-Obama left-wing politics. Its core thesis is that capitalism, if left untamed, suffers from a fundamental flaw and will inevitably lead to a growing concentration of economic power into the hands of those lucky enough to inherit large sums of wealth from their parents, a state Piketty calls "patrimonial capitalism."
National Review and The Nation rarely agree on much, but both the right-wing and the left-wing magazines have reviewed Piketty as part of a revival of Marxist thinking.
It's probably no coincidence that Americans see Piketty — a professor at École des hautes études en sciences sociales — as more left-wing than he sees himself. The French political debate is considerably broader than the American one (I recall a dinner a few years back at which a senior member of what's considered the moderate wing of France's currently-in-power Socialist Party told the room that the problem with American Democrats is they don't see the need to "transcend capitalism entirely.") So the view that capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80 percent on wage income supplemented by a modest tax on net wealth is not necessarily a radical viewpoint there. During our conversation he expressed admiration for the "responsible" attitude of German labor unions toward the needs of the firms they work for, presumably in contrast to the counterproductively militant attitudes of French labor.
Indeed, he is at pains to stress that he's not even really a madcap tax raiser or an enemy of wealth accumulation. "My point," he says, "is not to increase taxation of wealth. It's actually to reduce taxation of wealth for most people."
I gotta hand it to the French to have an avowed Marxist really telling us what he thinks will fix the economy. "The market economy is a system that has a lot of merit" and "capitalism should be tempered by a top tax rate of 80%" and a wealth tax. Not for revenue per se, but we gotta blast the wealthy or inequality overtakes us all!
Good, you didnt actually read a single word of it. Wanne try that again?
Mince words if you want, call him a socialist. With semantics we can loop all the way back around that true communism was never realized etc etc. I do know he advocates a 80% top tax rate i.e. a very high rate on high incomes. He claims to be favorably disposed towards the concept of a market economy. His confiscatory regime is exactly antagonistic to a market economy and that's what I find so laughable. Buy and sell goods on the market and earn your profit, but don't be too successful at it, otherwise we're going to get ya!
It's been plastered over the news for quite a while now. He was feted by White House advisers. He wants to put an end to those high incomes in service of inequality. Now Gorsameth, unless your primary academic understandings are in your profession of insult comic, perhaps you'd like to comment on Pikkety and America's economic or political situation?
Except the entire point of his book is that those that have done nothing to earn their wealth (by inheritance or sheer luck) are able to keep it. Even in the case that they do earn it, however, they still pose a risk to the system by holding the power to influence the government (local, state, and federal) and communities to give them an unfair advantage and maintain their wealth.
So you're saying he's declaring war against the lottery of birth?
On April 25 2014 08:23 oneofthem wrote: danglars can you explain the concept of economic rent to us.
Perhaps you will connect it to his argument and/or make your own. Amongst the abundance of invective and hyperbole here, there simply isn't time to play cute games with you to try to find your points. However, let me leave you with this: should you actually desire an explanation of an economic term, perhaps google.com will supply you one?
it becomes difficult to 'argue' with you if you don't know the basic structure of the arguments being presented.
It's hard to know where you agree with Piketty and where you might diverge. You on board with his characterization of the millions of petits rentiers? You also agree with a proposed fix to those earning more than 500k/1mil, to put an end to such incomes (book quote)? How about that middling (I laugh as I type this) 50-60% rate on 200k types, or the annual wealth tax up to 10%? The first thing that comes to mind when I read his fixes his analysis is that this is a man longing for utopia. In his rewriting of the Soviet experiment, I see some wishful thinking for throwing off the chains of the common man ... without somehow substituting more and/or worse.
It seems to me that this is the entire problem with the Left's idea- the state is ultimately run by fallible, finite human beings who, even if they could know exactly how to fix the problem, wouldn't necessarily want to. Therefore, any expansion and increase of centralized authority (be it to individuals or groups) just quickens the gravity-like attraction between power and totalitarianism. And like gravity, the force always exists, but if you are moving fast enough at the right altitude, you can counter it- but never be free of it. If I may torture the analogy some more, it appears to me that liberalism mistakes the fact that one floats in space with the idea that "gravity has almost no effect on me here." One must not stop accounting for its effects. That's why they complain about powergrabs, large corporations and inequality while at the same time supporting the growth of the most effective and corruptible vehicle for their fears to be realized- the government.
I don't question their motives, I just think their goal is unreachable.
Unless they can change who people are, it seems wiser to follow the guide of history: the centralizing of power eventually leads to the suppression of people's rights.
How would you characterize the suppression of rights under FDR's administration?
EPT
