Marx Madness Is Back
“Capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine democratic societies.”
–Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the 21st Century” (2014)
The Economist magazine rightly calls French professor Thomas Piketty the new Marx, although a watered-down version. Piketty’s bestseller (rated #1 on Amazon) is a thick volume with the same title as Karl Marx’s 1867 magnum opus, “Kapital.” The publisher, Harvard University Press, appropriately designed the book cover in red, the color of the socialist workers party.
Piketty cites Karl Marx more than any other economist, even more than Keynes. The professor barely mentions Adam Smith. Instead of the modern scientific name “economics,” he prefers the old term “political economy,” a favorite of radical professors.
And most importantly, Piketty’s focus is on the distribution of income and capital, not the creation of wealth. He’s not so much concerned with the size of the economic pie, but how it’s cut up.
Read more about why capitalism is worth defending against Marx Madness at Eagle Daily Investor.