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Piketty on Capitalism and Inequality

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  • Gary Mongiovi

Abstract

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century has focused attention on the dramatic rise in economic inequality that has occurred in the United States and Europe over the past four decades. This paper argues that his account of the mechanisms that determine the distribution of income and wealth in a capitalist economy is unconvincing, for it rests on a tautology and on a spurious hypothesis about how the savings rate, the growth rate, and the capital/income ratio are connected.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Mongiovi, 2015. "Piketty on Capitalism and Inequality," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 558-565, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:47:y:2015:i:4:p:558-565
    DOI: 10.1177/0486613415584580
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Javier López-Bernardo & Félix López-Martínez & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2016. "A Post-Keynesian Response to Piketty's ‘Fundamental Contradiction of Capitalism’," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 190-204, April.
    2. Ofori G., 1997. "Foreign construction workers in Singapore," ILO Working Papers 993211683402676, International Labour Organization.
    3. Shaikh, Anwar, 1974. "Laws of Production and Laws of Algebra: The Humbug Production Function," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(1), pages 115-120, February.
    4. Barnett, Alina & Batten, Sandra & Chiu, Adrian & Franklin, Jeremy & Sebastia-Barriel, Maria, 2014. "The UK productivity puzzle," Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of England, vol. 54(2), pages 114-128.
    5. Pavlina Tcherneva, 2014. "Reorienting fiscal policy: a bottom-up Approach," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 43-66.
    6. repec:ilo:ilowps:321168 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. B. Milanovic, 2014. "The Return of “Patrimonial Capitalism”: A Reviewof Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 9.
    8. Atkinson, A B, 2008. "The Changing Distribution of Earnings in OECD Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199532438.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Cited by:

    1. Jamie Morgan, 2016. "Understanding Piketty’s capital in the twenty-first century," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 612-618, October.
    2. Thomas E. LAMBERT, 2016. "Monopoly Capital and Capitalist Inequality: Marx after Piketty," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 151-159, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Piketty; income inequality; distribution; capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • N30 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • P10 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - General

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