[troutman]

Originally Posted by Slava

I already noted this in my other response, but the social engineering aspect is disturbing.

Vive Le Revolution!

http://www.theguardian.com/business/...ential-thinker

Piketty’s book is surely the most influential published by an economist in a generation, infuriating the right as much as it delighted an intellectually starved left. Using a mass of data, the book sought to expose why modern capitalism is an engine of exploding inequality: the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate at which the economy grows, he argues, and wealth is becoming ever more concentrated at the top of society.

More explosively, he proposes a global wealth tax as a check on this process, even though he has conceded this is “utopian”.

He unashamedly believes in “market forces”, arguing there is no “war of religion” between left and right in the modern era. But he defends his radicalism, arguing that a global wealth tax makes “property temporary, rather than permanent”, which he describes as “a permanent revolution, a very substantial change to the traditional capitalist system”.

Piketty fears the far right, including the surging National Front in France, which he describes as “very frightening”. “I am afraid that if you don’t find peaceful domestic solutions to our inequality and social problems, then it’s always tempting to find other people responsible for our problems.” The social contract is threatened by middle-class and poor people resenting paying more tax than multinational companies, which sometimes pay nothing.