Capital in the Twenty-First Century–Eternal Inequality?

No, I have not read all 577 pages of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I don’t think I have the wherewithal to hike through such a dense scholarly forest. Besides, there are also seventy-eight pages of notes inconveniently placed at the end of the book–rather than at the bottom of each page–that drive me bat shit. So I’ll leave it to the saintly patient among us to assemble a more complete assessment. Here I’ll sketch out my preliminary thoughts.

I’ve read more about Thomas Piketty and his economic laws and formula for inequality ‘r>g’ (now immortalized on a t-shirt by Stephen Colbert) than I have read pages of his book. But after having read a hundred or so pages, Capital in the Twenty-First Century now occupies pride of place on my desk where it conceals a good number of bills I would…