Imagine my excitement when I heard there was a new book by an economist that was taking the world by storm. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a bestseller. Piketty’s book is about wealth and inequality, a topic that has been beaten to death, so there has to be something new, right?
The twenty-first century needs new ideas. What does Piketty suggest to solve the world’s alleged economic problems? A massive global tax on the wealthy. Yes, massive income redistribution? This is what passes for new ideas?
It’s not surprising that liberals in the United States are embracing the book. These are the people who still think the minimum wage is a good idea. The American public has grown remarkably disconnected from the field of economics. Nowhere is this on better display than in our political parties.
The GOP for the most part is against immigration and the Democrats’ idea of economics is loony toons at times. Just read this article by Paul Rosenberg as he drools over fake Native American Elizabeth Warren and Thomas Piketty. Here’s my favorite part:
A neat summary of the right’s real source of upset comes from Lynn Stuart Parramore in an Alternet article republished here at Salon.
Doesn’t that sum up shallow intellectual debate in a nutshell? You don’t have to look very hard to find real disagreement about Piketty’s book, but Rosenberg sticks to Salon for his economics. Those of us who live in the world of logic can hardly get worked up about Paul Ryan. His plan doesn’t even tackle our debt problems for at least 50 years. Yet, Democrats think he’s an extremist. If you’re this far detached from reality is it really surprising that recycled ideas from 100 years ago would become an international bestseller?
Piketty is for the status quo and more of it. It seems that liberals are excited about anything that gives the state and the elite more control of the world. It’s not like the Republican Party is any different. The GOP is just more subtle about its appetite for crony capitalism.
The scariest part of Piketty’s book and its acclaim is how quickly the world has forgotten the horrors that socialism brought to the world in the twentieth century. This is precisely the point in Daniel Shuchman’s review in the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Piketty is not the first utopian visionary. He cites, for instance, the “Soviet experiment” that allowed man to throw “off his chains along with the yoke of accumulated wealth.” In his telling, it only led to human disaster because societies need markets and private property to have a functioning economy. He says that his solutions provide a “less violent and more efficient response to the eternal problem of private capital and its return.” Instead of Austen and Balzac, the professor ought to read “Animal Farm” and “Darkness at Noon.”
Let’s be frank about Piketty’s solutions. He’s asking for an 80% tax rate on incomes starting at “$500,000 or $1 million” and a 50%-60% tax rate on incomes as low as $200,000. It’s a ludicrous solution. The fact that so many people consider this type of thinking serious isn’t good news.
