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Attack on Piketty’s Capital Gets it Wrong

Mike Konczal; Jennifer Rankin; Chris Giles; Neil Irwin
Piketty's central theme is not that inequality of the ownership of wealth is going to skyrocket. The central theme is that the 1% already owns a lot of the capital stock, and the capital stock is going to get gigantic relative to the rest of the economy. Whatever the weakness this meg-tome and mega-best seller, there is no denying - the rich are getting richer, the poor, poorer. (And Piketty is not a Marxist.)

The Piketty Panic and Video of Stiglitz and Krugman on the Significance and Right-wing Hysteria over Piketty

Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty
New scholarship by the French economist is a bona fide phenomenon - and the right is terrified. Thomas Piketty argues that the main driver of inequality - the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth - threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. He calls for political action and policy intervention. Video - Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman on the significance of the work, and the stir.
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