March 1, 2020
THE EDGE OF AN INSIGHT:
Capital and Ideology by Thomas Piketty review - down the rabbit hole of bright abstractions (Paul Mason, 1 Mar 2020, The Guardian)
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.In a single table, Piketty demonstrates that, in the abstract, it would be possible to finance a radically egalitarian economy if both income tax and inheritance tax for the rich were set around 60-70%. The outcome would be to "make ownership of capital temporary". Meanwhile, by legislating to enforce power-sharing within firms, between workers and bosses, you could achieve the "true social ownership of capital".
At the End of History one hardly expects coherence from the critics of capitalism. But the idea that using capital transfers to create universal individual capital endowments is anything but capitalism on steroids is pretty demented. Meanwhile, having recognized the need to make everyone wealthy the idea that we should tax that wealth is conflicted on a Harvey Dent level.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 1, 2020 12:00 AM