What type of economist is Piketty?

Seven years ago a French economist named Thomas Piketty published a book entitled Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It was 700 pages long and featured in-depth empirical analysis of various historical tax systems, amounting to a forensic argument against widening inequality.

Is Piketty a liberal?

There is nothing Marxist about Piketty’s politics, which are those of a liberal reformer, while his concept of capital is closer to an accounting category (a proxy for “wealth”) than the exploitative force that Marx saw it as.

How does Piketty define wealth?

But Piketty uses an expansive definition of capital so that it is the same as wealth. All the shares of stock and houses and cash assets that people own constitute capital, or wealth.

What is the main message of Piketty in his book capital and ideology?

Piketty argues that there is a cyclical tendency for ideology to defend inequality, and for inequality to feed ideology. Ideology involves a “range of contradictory discourses”, which create a “dominant narrative”. These narratives lead to rules. The rules bolster inequality, and inequality generates more ideology.

Is Piketty a socialist?

In this book, Piketty outlines his solution: a “participatory socialism” in which capitalism is gradually abolished via a progressive income tax and a tax on inherited wealth, which are used to finance both a basic income and a “capital endowment” for every citizen.

Is Piketty a Keynesian?

In the Keynesian view, the self-destructive tendencies of capitalism can be easily moderated with the right policies, something which Piketty also believes. Piketty’s favorite policy is a progressive wealth tax, to lean against the natural tendency of capital to accumulate in ever-fewer hands.

What did Thomas Piketty argue?

Piketty’s principal claim in Capital in the Twenty-first Century was that there is a “central contradiction of capitalism.” He maintained that the average return on capital exceeds the rate of economic growth, so without countervailing factors—such as World Wars I and II, the Great Depression of the 1930s, or specific …