Publications

The rights and wrongs of Piketty’s theses

A substantial data set that delivers no arguments in favour of a wealth tax

Surprisingly for an economics book, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century received substantial media exposure, including – ironically – in Vanity Fair, a magazine devoted to reports on the rich and famous. And the magazine’s response to the French economist’s demand for taxes of up to 80 percent on high incomes and up to 2 percent on wealth was anything but harsh. In Piketty’s view, such measures are the only way to rectify the increasingly uneven and unfair distribution of wealth. This response alone showed that the author had struck a nerve in modern society, which was one reason for its success.

• Author: Hanno Lorenz
• Date: 09. October 2014