In discussions like this the numbers matter. To quote Heinlein, “What are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"(1) Piketty's book suffers from poor numbers and bad maths, making his conclusions useless. If he is right, he needs to support it with sound numbers.
Chris Giles in The Financial Times found his numbers wanting. (2) In Piketty's response(3), he downplays the importance of the questions, focusing on the European numbers. FOr5 the US numbers, he recommends substituting the numbers of Emmanuel Saez (Berkeley) and Gabriel Zucman.(4) But those numbers are based on reported capital gains taxes without adjusting for major changes in the law and changes in the definition of capital gains.
I don't know if Piketty is right or wrong, but I know his Excel spreadsheets are not adequate evidence. I'd like him to be right; I think wealth disparity in the USA since 1980 is more due to legal maneuvering than merit. I also know my thinking it isn't evidence.
Of course, there have been quite a few criticisms of Mr. Giles's analysis of Piketty. It seems to have been substantially worse (my opinion) than Piketty's errors.
See [1],"FT journalist accused of serious errors in Thomas Piketty takedown", [2] "Have Giles and the FT gone too far in the attack on Piketty?" (where the answer is "..On most points, Piketty has answered the points in a reasonable (and to me generally persuasive) way.", and [3] Piketty's response to Giles.
Chris Giles in The Financial Times found his numbers wanting. (2) In Piketty's response(3), he downplays the importance of the questions, focusing on the European numbers. FOr5 the US numbers, he recommends substituting the numbers of Emmanuel Saez (Berkeley) and Gabriel Zucman.(4) But those numbers are based on reported capital gains taxes without adjusting for major changes in the law and changes in the definition of capital gains.
I don't know if Piketty is right or wrong, but I know his Excel spreadsheets are not adequate evidence. I'd like him to be right; I think wealth disparity in the USA since 1980 is more due to legal maneuvering than merit. I also know my thinking it isn't evidence.
1) http://www.timeenoughforlove.org/Heinlein.htm
2) http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/media/FT230520...
3) http://www.voxeu.org/article/factual-response-ft-s-fact-chec...
4) http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf