HOT OFF THE PRESSES
I have now completed the assembly of the first volume of selections from my past blog posts. The volume, entitled A Collection of Pebbles - 2009, contains a large number of short occasional posts from the first seven months of my blogging -- June through December, 2009. It is available on box.net, accessible by following the link at the top of this page. Eventually, I shall complete and archive volumes from 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.
I have read Piketty and it is simply not the case that Piketty ignored the possibility of lower R in the future and what it's effect would be. He did explain why he thought the other scenario was far more likely. In any event, r>g was not negated . Points one and two at the bottom are interesting and I, politically, as am autonomous Marxist would have loved to see further elaboration, but Pikkety is a social democrar not a Marxist. The third point, I don't accept what the author states.
ReplyDeleteI have critiques of Piketty's non Marxist analysis and of his proposals. I am not out to save Capital, but to destroy it. However, that is not what Piketty is about. His book will be, in any event, an invaluable contribution. No one else has done what he has done, gathered all the data, done all the research and analysis since Marx. I accept that he and I have a different goal and a different political and ideological perspective, but I praise what he has done and am thankful for a wealth of much needed information. It is easy to critique his work, but until someone presents the wealth of data he does, and proves his major conclusions incorrect based on such, well, I won't be terribly taken with the criticism. Talk is cheap and that is pretty much all we have has for a long time. Finally, I have been an activist for nearly fifty years, and I would say, like Marx, " philosophers have only interpreted the world, the thing is, however, to change it." Piketty data will help but it is the multitude, it is class struggle that will do that (something, I might add, Piketty does not much discuss). It won't be the philosophers, the economists, the vanguard parties, the intellectuals. Again as Marx said, only the class can emancipate itself...and so it shall be.
Oread Daily, I agree completely with what you say. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI would add that I honestly believe that most people who have been critical of Piketty's work, have not actually read the whole thing.
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