Dollars & Sense
My last post summarized the positive reviews of Piketty and focused on some of the best of these. This post looks at the negative reviews. The silly ones tend to come from the far right and were discussed in my first review of reviews of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The more serious critiques come from the left of Piketty and make three points. First, following Solow (see my previous post), a number of reviewers take Piketty to task for expecting that the rate of return to capital will always exceed the economic growth rate based on the fact that it has done so in the past. Second, many reviewers criticize the policy proposals put forth at the end of the book. They claim either that the main proposal– a universal wealth tax– is politically unrealistic and that there are other policies, ignored by Piketty, that can help reduce inequality. Finally, several critics on the left express unhappiness with the fact that Piketty relies on a neoclassical economic model when doing his analysis and drawing out his policy conclusions. This is problematic both because of the so-called Cambridge Controversy (more on this below) and because the neoclassical model (which favors the free market) was at least partially responsible for the Great Recession.
One of the best critical reviews of Capital comes from Tom Palley. As far as I know it has not been published in print; however, this does not matter, since it appears on his blog. Some of Palley’s points seem to me on the mark and some seem off the mark. But it is a thoughtful and scholarly reflection on Piketty, and the issues raised are worth thinking about seriously.
Live-Blogging Piketty: Review of Reviews, Pt. 3
Steven Pressman | Professor of Economics and Finance at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ
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