{"id":26134,"date":"2014-06-04T08:43:12","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T13:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=26134"},"modified":"2014-06-04T08:43:12","modified_gmt":"2014-06-04T13:43:12","slug":"pikettys-book-as-revealed-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/06\/04\/pikettys-book-as-revealed-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Piketty’s book as revealed truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sean Collins<\/a> says “thou shalt not doubt St. Thomas”:<\/p>\n

The Piketty-FT<\/em> debate should be seen for the arcane technical dispute that it is, but instead many claimed that it was a Big Deal, a decisive political debate for our times. This overblown reaction highlights how Pikettymania has got out of control. Your attitude to Piketty\u2019s Capital<\/em> \u2013 a 700-page tome that many have not read \u2013 has become a badge indicating that you are right-on (or not) when it comes to inequality.<\/p>\n

Pikettymania took flight when the left hailed him as extraordinary, a hero, and claimed his book would utterly transform the policy discussion towards questioning capitalism. Liberal economist Paul Krugman considers Capital<\/em> \u2018the most important economics book of the year \u2013 and maybe the decade\u2019. Even those who disagree with the content feel obliged to claim the book is exceptional; for example, Lawrence Summers, a top economist in the Clinton and Obama administrations, says it is a \u2018Nobel Prize-worthy contribution\u2019, even though he finds Piketty\u2019s theory to be wrong.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

When the Great Man himself responded to the FT<\/em>, his annoyance at having to deal with someone raising questions about his awesome work was clear. \u2018Ridiculous\u2019 and \u2018dishonest\u2019 was how he initially described the FT<\/em>\u2019s findings. In his full reply, he says the FT<\/em>\u2019s points were \u2018criticism for the sake of criticism\u2019 — in other words, this wasn\u2019t a genuine search for the truth. In response to a number of the FT<\/em>\u2019s specific charges, Piketty says that he often had to adjust the data because of their inadequacies, and he applied his best judgment. He admits that in a few cases he could have been more explicit in describing his adjustments.<\/p>\n

Such a response may lead to more questions, but not from his loyal supporters, who were busy celebrating Piketty\u2019s \u2018victory\u2019 over the FT<\/em>. \u2018Piketty\u2019s devastating point-by-point rebuttal\u2019, says Robert Kuttner, shows that Giles \u2018made a fool of himself\u2019. Economist and New York Times<\/em> contributor Justin Wolfers tweeted, \u2018Debate\u2019s over folks\u2019 — providing further evidence for Joel Kotkin\u2019s theory of the spread of a \u2018debate is over\u2019 syndrome among the modern left, which seeks to impose a stifling conformity on a variety of issues (from climate change to the causes of poverty and the definition of marriage, among others). Krugman concluded that the FT<\/em>-Piketty debate showed the persistence of inequality \u2018deniers\u2019 — the same term of abuse thrown at today\u2019s heretics who dare to question climate-change orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

This anti-intellectual \u2018nothing to see here, folks\u2019 approach is wrong; more, not less, debate should be encouraged. Piketty\u2019s data is fair game, but there\u2019s much more to his argument that should be questioned, too. Even if Piketty\u2019s figures are perfect, he still cannot explain why inequality changes over time, nor back up his predictions for the future. Moreover — as I pointed out in my review of his book — we should challenge the elite\u2019s obsession with the lives of the rich and famous, which distracts from a proper discussion about economic growth and increasing living standards for all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sean Collins says “thou shalt not doubt St. Thomas”: The Piketty-FT debate should be seen for the arcane technical dispute that it is, but instead many claimed that it was a Big Deal, a decisive political debate for our times. This overblown reaction highlights how Pikettymania has got out of control. Your attitude to Piketty\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,25,28],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-26134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-economics","category-media","tag-criticism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6Nw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26135,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26134\/revisions\/26135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}