Tuesday, April 5, 2022
NY Occasions: Thomas Piketty Thinks America Is Primed For Wealth Redistribution
New York Occasions, Thomas Piketty Thinks America Is Primed for Wealth Redistribution:
In 2013, the French economist Thomas Piketty, in his finest vendor Capital within the Twenty-First Century, a e book eagerly acquired within the wake of the 2008 financial collapse, put forth the notion that returns on capital traditionally outstrip financial progress (his well-known r>g components). The upshot? The wealthy get richer, whereas the remainder of us keep caught within the mud. Now, almost a decade later, Piketty is about to publish A Transient Historical past of Equality, wherein he argues that we’re on a trajectory of larger, not much less, equality and lays out his prescriptions for remedying our present corrosive wealth disparities. (In brief: Tax the wealthy.) If the road from one e book to the opposite appears barely askew given the state of the world, then, Piketty suggests, you’re wanting from the improper vantage level. “I’m comparatively optimistic,” says Piketty, who’s 50, “in regards to the reality that there’s a long-run motion towards extra equality, which works past the little particulars of what occurs inside a particular decade.” …
What did you consider the billionaire tax that Biden simply proposed?
It will have been higher earlier than his election. In case you had informed the American public earlier than the elections that he needed a wealth tax — which once more is one thing that could be very excessive in opinion polls — this may have been a lot simpler. This might have compelled the Democratic Congress to take a stand. It’s extra sophisticated now. But when it really works, it’s higher than nothing. …
You recognize, I do discover it exhausting to wrap my head round the concept after 40 years of worsening inequality, you — the inequality man, Mr. r>g — are publishing a e book saying we’re heading in the right direction traditionally. It’s form of chilly consolation to know we’re extra equal immediately than we have been 100 or 200 years in the past. Actually give me a motive to really feel as optimistic as you do.
“Give me a motive to be optimistic?” By my historic proof, by eager about the massive image, I’ve turn into extra optimistic. I used to be a bit puzzled that many individuals “Capital within the Twenty-First Century” got here away with a pessimistic conclusion. I’m attempting to point out that the important thing in historical past just isn’t the massive catastrophes however the constructive political building of another, and this course of began with the French Revolution, the U.S. revolution. This course of towards extra equality is extra deeply rooted in our fashionable ethos and fashionable political cultures than most individuals imagine. I bear in mind in 2014 having a public dialogue with Elizabeth Warren in Boston. I used to be speaking a few progressive wealth tax with a fee of 5 p.c per 12 months or 10 p.c per 12 months on billionaires. She checked out me like, Wow, that’s an excessive amount of. Joe Biden immediately, a centrist Democrat — who voted for the Tax Reform Act of 1986 — is coming in with a wealth tax. Issues can change fairly quick.
(Hat Tip: Michael Talbert)
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2022/04/ny-times-thomas-piketty-thinks-america-is-primed-for-wealth-redistribution.html
