Come off it, it’s not like this isn’t a staple of political economy since the 1800s or so.
A very charitable description of Piketty’s big ted talk of a book is that it suffers from the same flaws of classics like “A monetary history of the United States” by Friedman and Schwartz: it uses empirics as gargoyles, not as structural beams. It seems to be a great argument that’s backed by numbers — but whatever you make of it, the numbers are a distraction.
The cringe of it is that Piketty’s numbers are also fraudulent, as extensively documented by dozens upon dozens of important scholars.
> ... as extensively documented by dozens upon dozens of important scholars.
Do tell. In particular, give some references to those who you are talking about rather than leaving us to do our own searches (and then guessing which results are those you are talking about).
And also tell who we should believe the criticisms of these "important scholars" and not the criticisms of the criticisms.
Come off it, it’s not like this isn’t a staple of political economy since the 1800s or so.
A very charitable description of Piketty’s big ted talk of a book is that it suffers from the same flaws of classics like “A monetary history of the United States” by Friedman and Schwartz: it uses empirics as gargoyles, not as structural beams. It seems to be a great argument that’s backed by numbers — but whatever you make of it, the numbers are a distraction.
The cringe of it is that Piketty’s numbers are also fraudulent, as extensively documented by dozens upon dozens of important scholars.