Inequality, Piketty and an Interesting Middle Ground
I haven't read Thomas Piketty's recent blockbuster, Capital in the Twentyfirst Century, because I am already so far behind on my reading intentions, but I intend to read it at some point of time. This 700 page economics tome has already sold 200,000 copies and caused quite a stir because of its popularity. One would hope that this will not become like its eponymous predecessor, Marx's Capital, a book popularly bought but seldom read. Like the latter, Piketty is trying to explore a great contemporary problem, inequality, and is doing so at the onset of another gilded age. The immediate trigger of this post is another post by Sudhakar Ram, whose writings on New Constructs I closely follow ( see here ). Sudhakar's response to the critique of Piketty's work - that it is no good talking about a problem if you can't solve it - is right on the money: Should I not tell you that you have cancer even if I don't know the cure for that? Besides, he also picks up o...