Versión Español
EspañolEvery generation rallies around a singer, an actor, a writer, and – although less evidently – an economist.
Thomas Piketty is all the rage nowadays. Everyone has heard about him and everyone has an opinion on his theories, truly a feat in a profession where recognition is limited to academic circles.
Piketty is the economist of this generation, having dethroned Paul Krugman — or perhaps sharing the altar with him, given their political affinity.
The Frenchman’s book “Capital in the 21st Century,” which mimics Karl Marx’s magnum opus even on the cover, became a worldwide bestseller almost overnight — never mind that many of his supporters have confessed to not being able to read it in its entirety.
Yes, Piketty is a tough read. He intertwines economic assumptions with convoluted, 18th-century French prose. As if that not were enough, it is huge: a 650-page volume.
- Lea más: Piketty Misses the Mark: Inequality Isn’t the Problem, Poverty Is
- Lea más: Piketty Dishes Up Class Envy Disguised as Economics
Perhaps its biggest strength lies in that fact; people hardly ever admit to not understanding something, and in doubt, they applaud.
I wish that literary aspects were the only thing that’s wrong with Piketty’s book. But the French economist is the new standard-bearer of the old faulty reasoning that says the poor exist because there are rich people.
He’s become an inspiration to Bernie Sanders in the United States, Pablo Iglesias in Spain, Axel Kicillof in Argentina, and to all the economically resentful, revanchist, and anti-progress left.
Thomas Piketty is the left’s muse because he represents the very essence of their movement.
According to Piketty, capitalism produces inequality. But is inequality in itself a problem? To answer this question we need to distinguish inequality from poverty.
Inequality is a condition of human existence: there will always be someone who owns more than the rest. People eating caviar five times a day while others can only afford rice with vegetables is something that will not change.
The true problem then are those who have absolutely nothing to eat. We should focus on solving poverty, not inequality, which is a feature of human life. I don’t demand to earn the same as Mark Zuckerberg because, among other things, I would have never come up with Facebook and be able to profit from it as he has. We have different incomes because we don’t generate the same profits. And that’s fine.
But let’s get back to poverty and Piketty: is the world poorer because of capitalism? The answer is not only a resounding “no,” but also “quite the opposite.”
Over the past two centuries, as industries flourished thanks to evil capitalism, we’ve grown richer. This is specially true in recent decades: in 1990, according to U.N. data, 47 percent of the world was in poverty. By 2005, it had fallen to 27 percent. In 2015, the figure stands at 22 percent.
For the first time in human history, obesity is more prevalent than starvation, a clear indicator that the world, although not perfect, is a much better place than it was two centuries ago.
I invite readers to ask themselves whether they do not enjoy from a quality of life that was unthinkable to their grandparents.
But Thomas Piketty cares little about poverty and even less about wealth creation, the only tried-and-tried solution to fight the former. The Frenchman, obsessed with inequality, proposes the same magic recipe as all socialists before him: more taxes.
Piketty focuses on a very particular one that he called “global wealth tax.” The rich, he holds, must give up up to 80 percent of their income — or rent or assets, a vagueness that pokes a hole in his theory — in favor of the poor. He also asserts that a system of redistribution would be in charge of ensuring that the money or assets are put to a better use.
Redistribution has never worked. It has only served to create and concentrate power, to corrupt officials, to weaken citizens and turn them into beggars.
Across the world, and in Latin America in particular, this is nothing new; many governments have come up with that idea.
Among many, you have the Castros, Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, José “Pepe” Mujica, the Kirchners, Lula da Silva, and Dilma Rousseff. We have suffered when they tried to enact such policies. Unfortunately, we know all too well how the “systems of redistribution” work. Everyone, from “exploitative” business owners to “exploited” employees, ends up a loser.
Redistribution has never worked. It has only served to create and concentrate power, to corrupt officials, to weaken citizens and turn them into beggars. Redistribution is the basis of socialism and socialism has failed and will continue to fail.
If Piketty was truly concerned about poverty, he would have written a book on how to increase wealth.
So why is he so popular? First and foremost, popularity alone does not prove anything. Hitler was popular. Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the racist and homophobic murderer whose true history no one bothers to read, is still popular.
Thomas Piketty’s popularity is due to a simple fact: after all the failures and horrors of socialism, he is keeping the dream alive with a “new” theory.
Plain and simple, redistribution sounds and feels good. Repeating it works like a mantra to clean guilty consciences: “I feel deeply about poverty, but at least I believe in redistribution! I fight poverty by advocating for redistribution.”
Then I go back home and write “death to capitalism” screeds on social media — from my iPhone.
