(Replying to PARENT post)

Read Tyler Cowan's critique of Piketty which was just published today. My favorite bit is near the end, where Cowan reinforces that by Piketty's own admission, the proposed wealth tax would shift up to 75% of national income to the Government: ''Therein lies the most fundamental problem with Piketty’s policy proposals: the best parts of his book argue that, left unchecked, capital and capitalists inevitably accrue too much power -- and yet Piketty seems to believe that governments and politicians are somehow exempt from the same dynamic.''

I took a class from a famous economics professor who had emigrated from the former Soviet Union after its collapse. He made the point one day that there have always been rich and poor - and always will be. In America, the predominant distinction is capital wealth - dollars. In the USSR, it was political power; if you had political power, you had private planes, villas, and servants. At the end of the day, the inequality is always present.

Link: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141218/tyler-cowen/ca...

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(Replying to PARENT post)

Interesting enough, Thomas Paine argued the exact opposite in his famous pamphlet arguing for Social Security. Paine is that American revolutionary you always see quoted at anti-tax rallies. His pamphlet on Social Security shared the same conclusions as Piketty's "Capital" except written two centuries earlier.

"It is wrong to say God made rich and poor; He made only male and female, and He gave them the earth for their inheritance." -- Thomas Paine, On Agrarian Justice

http://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html

The Social Security system Paine advocated was more targeted to 21 year olds and was designed to offer everyone opportunity at the height of their lives. While he also theorized keeping the elderly from poverty, it was not the core idea of his plan.

👤mncolinlee🕑11y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> there have always been rich and poor - and always will be

Yes, and Jesus said[1] "ye have the poor always with you."

Likewise, there will always be crime, and disease, and suffering.

But do you agree that extreme inequality is a bad outcome? That putting more and more wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer monopolists and oligopolists is toxic to democracy and freedom?

If so, then working to reduce extreme inequality is a noble cause just like reducing crime, disease and suffering is worthwhile.

Even if these maladies will always be with us.

[1] http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/26.htm#6

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(Replying to PARENT post)

While the famous economics prof's point makes sense, I don't believe inequality has to be inevitable. "The always will be" argument could have been applied to slavery for most of human history, and while it's true slavery remains a problem in the present day (ie human trafficking) it is not now treated as inevitable nor is it officially condoned.

The definition of poverty also shifts ... in North America today everyone has a tv, and probably a computer, all of which could be considered luxury goods at points in the past - no one lives today like the poor of a hundred years ago, but we still have people who we consider poor, and who consider themselves poor.

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(Replying to PARENT post)

Of course inequality is always present. That's not an argument against anything.

But does it always need to grow without bound? Is it the same in all countries - and if not, why not? And how does welfare for the worst off change with different amounts of inequality?

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(Replying to PARENT post)

Judging by the dates on the comments, Cowen's review came out more like a month ago.
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