Well, I never intended to begin a mini-industry of Piketty interpretation and exegesis. I just set out to read Capital in the Twenty-First Century carefully so that I could assemble it’s full argument in my head and on paper, and then critically evaluate it. But in the process of working up my interpretation, I ran into a profusion of reviews, journalistic responses, and blog comments, many from reputable sources, that were so muddled and full of interpretive errors that I felt increasingly compelled to correct them. I’ve been trying to do my small bit to prevent the public record from becoming so polluted with erroneus representations of what Piketty says and doesn’t say that the work itself would end up buried under a mountain of confusion.Rugged Egalitarianism
Here are my most recent Piketty posts, each of which appeared over the past two weeks, listed from the most recent to least recent.
Taking Stock at My Cottage Piketty Industry
Dan Kervick
4 comments:
You've been doing sterling work, Dan. Very impressive stuff.
Unfortunately there seem to be quite lot of ideologues out there who really want Piketty's work to be buried under a mountain of confusion.
Thanks y. I think it's not just the ideologues, because I've seen this phenomenon before in other academic fields. When a really giant new book comes along and lands on a field, all of the existing practitioners start thinking, "If everybody starts talking about this guys stuff all the time, thenthen they will stop talking about my stuff!" So professional rivalry and envy play a role.
OT, but relevant to readers of Piketty reviews:
According to my anti-virus program I downloaded a trojan horse, JSRedir-HP, a javascript file that infects Windows, from the Galbraith review at Dissent Magazine Online. Word to the wise.
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