My time these days is spent slowly plowing through the Piketty [up to page 300, more than half the book], so that I can write a long discussion of it before I go to Africa April first. In a fascinating discussion of inequality in the United States, which, as he observes, has now reached the level of inequality in old Europe before World War I, Piketty analyzes what has been happening lately to those in the top 5%, 4%, and 1% of income. I came across this brief passage, which I just had to share:
"Among the members of these upper income groups are U. S. academic economists, many of whom believe that the economy of the United States is working fairly well and, in particular, that it rewards talent and merit accurately and precisely. This is a very comprehensible human reaction." [p. 296]
I mean, you gotta love him!
It is easy to relate to the purblindness of academic economists -- hey things are working for us! What is harder to understand is the economic royalism of many lower income people. Krugman just did a post on "I get mail" quoting one correspondent who found the idea of redistribution abhorrent and "un-American".
ReplyDeleteWhat's the matter with Kansas? Really!
Of course maybe the rage-blinded vulgarity of the rant Krugman quoted doesn't prove he isn't a billionaire's teenaged heir.