[Zzlist-deux] Why are They Afraid of Thomas Piketty?

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A new posting -
Why are They Afraid of Thomas Piketty?
<http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-are-they-afraid-of-thomas-piketty.html>
- from Zoltan Zigedy is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/


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When I first *wrote* <http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2014_02_01_archive.html>
about Thomas Piketty and his book-- a month before the publication of the
English language edition of *Capital in the Twenty-first Century--* I felt
confident that he, and it, would have a large impact even beyond the
academic community. For sure, I never expected it to be a best-seller, but
I thought I saw the book filling a particular, urgent need for one segment
of the political spectrum. While others noted the book's timely appearance
in the wake of the 2007-2008 economic catastrophe and arrival concurrent
with attention to revealed trends in inequality, my sense was that the book
would be received as a godsend by liberals and social democrats.
 Though the crisis cast a long ideological shadow over neo-classical
economics and its associated policies, the widely expected return to the
Keynesianism of the post-war era never materialized. Despite the best
efforts of high-exposure, acclaimed economists like Joseph Stiglitz and
Paul Krugman, New Deal-like policy prescriptions failed to gain popular
traction or political support. The dashed high hopes invested in
center-left governments in the UK, the US and, most recently, France,
further disappointed reform-minded forces in North America and Europe.
Accordingly, hopes of turning away from the conservative, free-market
paradigm of the last thirty-five years were at a low ebb before Piketty's
book.
 It was my view that the Piketty book would be enthusiastically welcomed
outside of the conservative consensus. His exposure of historical patterns
of inequality demonstrates the tendency of capitalism to generate
inequality, a condition seeming to cry out for a remedy. In Piketty's
research and his theoretical claims, liberals and social democrats might
find a new foundation for reforms, even a grand assault on conservative
hegemony. Indeed, some economists have likened the anticipated impact of
Piketty's book to the much earlier publication of Keynes's *General Theory
of Employment, Interest, and Money*.
 Indeed, the Piketty phenomenon continues to draw interest. My Google
alerts on “Piketty” show fewer entries, but continue unabated. Yet liberal
and social democratic ideologues and policy makers are not nearly as
enthusiastic as I expected. The initial euphoria has been tempered as
Piketty's ideas are digested and their implications carefully examined.
 A recent issue of *Real World Economics Review *demonstrates the
widespread and growing hesitancy to accept Piketty as the messiah of
reform. Friends in the Communist Party of Ireland brought attention to the
*Review*'s *Special Issue on Piketty's Capital*
<http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue69/whole69.pdf> in which 17
economists of liberal and social democratic persuasion reflect on the
popular book.
 *The “Respectable” Left Sours on Piketty*
 The participants in the *RWER *forum are established social scientists
sincerely troubled by persistence of inequality and poverty. Some-- Yanis
Varoufakis, Ann Pettifor, Richard Parker, Michael Hudson, James K.
Galbraith, and Dean Baker-- are prominent commentators in liberal and left
circles. All express admiration for Piketty's success in drawing attention
to inequality. Yet nearly all are uncomfortable with his research results
and theoretical claims. Some challenge his “fundamental laws of
capitalism,” others his “determinism.” In the end, the stone in the shoe of
these liberal or social democratic thinkers is Piketty's notion that, *cateris
parebis*, capitalism systemically produces and reproduces inequality. Dean
Baker confirms this when he states: “It is the adoption of policies that
were friendly to these business interests that led to the increase in
profit shares in recent years, *not any inherent dynamic of capitalism*, as
some may read Piketty as saying.” (My italics)  *TO READ MORE, GO TO*:*
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/ <http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/>*
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