Want to really shut down the chief engine generating inequality? Forget the author's solution and do this insteadChange he institutions that distribute r upward to institutions that distribute r differently. It's a social and political choice instead of being determined by some "natural laws" of economics, meritocracy, or just deserts. Start thinking about society as a social system with functionality and dysfunctionality, instead of falling into the trap of assuming ontological and methodological individualism that is contradicted by social science.
Salon
Everyone is reading Piketty wrong — including Piketty!
Jesse Meyerson
1 comment:
Yes, Myerson is right. Worked fine worldwide during the postwar era, and for those unstylish countries that decided not to abandon those policies and institutions as much as fashion then dictated, even after.
Thinking of that era as a special situation rather than a "normal" one is a major mistake, which Piketty makes because it doesn't fit with his IMHO excessively empirical (How un-French!) point of view.
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