Thursday, March 27, 2014

Daily Read: Capital in the 21st Century

9780674430006In a review in this week's New Yorker, John Cassidy makes the case that the new book by Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is one that "nobody interested in a defining issue of our era can afford to ignore."

This defining issue is economic inequality.  Piketty's book, translated from the French and published by Harvard University Press, is an examination of the phenomenon as well as a proposal for remediation. 

The proposal is a "wealth tax."  Perhaps that's a "political nonstarter" as Cassidy suggests and as Piketty seemingly acknowledges.  But perhaps it's not.

 

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Comments

It's a political non-starter. Arguably, a progressive tax system is a "wealth tax."

Posted by: Tom N | Mar 27, 2014 9:37:40 PM

I believe Piketty is speaking of taxes on accumulated wealth and not merely income.

Posted by: Ruthann Robson | Mar 29, 2014 8:05:27 AM

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