Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

bostonreview.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 218 posts

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#31

Post by lifty »

defterGoose wrote: post #5
dorchadas wrote: post #3

I'm currently working my way through Capital in the Twenty-First Century . It's been really eye-opening about how bad inequality actually is. I suggest everyone read it, and I'm excited to read his new one soon after.

The narrative about capital providing opportunity for many is largely a myth IMHO. While this may have been true when companies reinvested in their products and people, in the age of stock buybacks and leveraged takeovers, capital seems to serve more as simply a tool for accumulation; permanently removing value from the economy for the benefit of a very few.

That's why I don't like to call the current system capitalism. I find Varoufakis' description more apt: socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. Or put in another way, privatised gains and socialised losses.

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#32

Post by [deleted] »

karatestomp wrote: post #24
save_ferris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assume most are just oblivious, given the fact that the Democratic Party still tries to identify as a worker-first party. That’s rapidly changing with the rise of the modern progressive movement, DSA and the like. Part of the problem is the two-party system, which essentially ensures that control remains between the Dems and GOP. This is why so many presidential elections wind up being contests of the least-…

It’s also why some positions that should be fairly common are effectively impossible to express. For single payer healthcare, against the death penalty, and anti-abortion? You have no good candidates. Pro union, but also for stronger anti-illegal-immigration measures? Ditto. And so on.

[deleted]

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#33

Post by refurb »

specialist wrote: post #23
clairity wrote: post #4

> "[hyper-capitalism] is defined by unlimited international capital mobility to evade regulation and taxation at the national level, alongside definite limits on the ability of labor to act in the same autonomous way." such inequities imbalance the power between labor and capital, which then destabilizes the social structures resting on these economic (and political) foundations. power is a highly dynamic, and as a r…

I'd like all belligerants to pick a target Gini Coefficient number. Then we manage to that number. Whoever is in power will push the balance towards their number. I'm just so exhausted by all the rhetoric, kabuki, ideology, dogma, propaganda. Arguing about the placement of the deck chairs as the Titanic sinks.

Gini coefficient is a very blunt measure of inequality. You could have two countries, one with more equality, but a lower standard of living for the middle class and one country with higher inequality, but a much better standard of living for the middle class.

The 2nd (with higher inequality) is obviously preferred.

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#34

Post by worik »

simonh wrote: post #6
dorchadas wrote: post #3

I'm currently working my way through Capital in the Twenty-First Century . It's been really eye-opening about how bad inequality actually is. I suggest everyone read it, and I'm excited to read his new one soon after.

It's a fascinating book and deservedly highly influential, but please also read some of the rebuttals and counter-points for a good understanding of the issues.

The fundamental point (r>g) is irrefutable.

It may be possible to claim that inequality does not matter. In the absence of poverty that may be possible, but when the richest country in the world (USA) has a health system that leas out ~20% of the population and one of the poorest (Cuba) has a gold plated health system, that is a hard claim to make.

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#35

Post by clairity »

nemo wrote: post #18
0x262d wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking through some of the comments, I want to add that Piketty talks much more clearly about these topics and makes better points than most consensus economists, pundits, etc, so I'm glad people are reading him rather than eg NYT columnists. But I think people who find this sort of thing interesting would find marxism's analysis of the economy much more interesting and convincing. Start with Wage Labour And Capital…

Anyone interested in Marx should read Bertrand Russel's critiques of Marxism and his analysis of the Manifesto with an honest mind. The Hegelianism behind Marxism is a tool that can prove both that the Kingdom of Prussia in the 1760s was a reflection of God's will, as well as giving Marx the idea that he had a scientific approach to history that let him predict the future. Any tool of reasoning that can prove anythin…

> "[the Labor Theory of Value is] an idea long since thoroughly discredited."

that's quite a claim to make without any backing ("everything is nothing" is not particularly useful).

i've read some of the main critiques [0], but none thoroughly discredits it. yes, the critiques show flaws, but not fatal ones.

so what's the fatal flaw?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_the_labour_theor...

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#36

Post by rsync »

tomesco wrote: post #25
simonh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a fascinating book and deservedly highly influential, but please also read some of the rebuttals and counter-points for a good understanding of the issues.

Could you please share any you recommend?

I think this one is even-handed and generally well-regarded:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/06/24/book-review-capital-in...

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#37

Post by dv_dt »

hardtke wrote: post #9
dorchadas wrote: post #3

I'm currently working my way through Capital in the Twenty-First Century . It's been really eye-opening about how bad inequality actually is. I suggest everyone read it, and I'm excited to read his new one soon after.

The thing I took away from Capital in the Twenty-First Century was his conjecture that the post-WWII (until about 1990) period was one of the few times in history that prosperity was widely shared with workers. The era that I consider to be normal (since I lived it) is in fact very abnormal.

Normal or abnormal it's worth thinking about about the conditions that make it arise and how to support that condition of more widely shared prosperity - otherwise I think we get stuck in a local optimization peak or worse imho.

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#38

Post by NeutralCrane »

tehjoker wrote: post #21
codingslave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always viewed it as paradoxical that the left is both: 1.) For the welfare of the worker, social programs, universal healthcare, "standard of living" 2.) Open borders immigration, free trade, outsourcing, and other ultra capitalist policies.

Open borders is anti-capitalist because it allows labor to move with the same liberty as capital, so it can help reduce the ability of capitalists to find deals. Without other policies it is atomizing and ineffective, but there is a good moral argument for it in that invisible lines shouldn't hamper freedom of movement for people. Nations are fake. The socialist left is against free trade and outsourcing. Period. We…

> Open borders is anti-capitalist because it allows labor to move with the same liberty as capital, so it can help reduce the ability of capitalists to find deals.

Except like so much with socialism, the reality and the hypothetical are in stark contrast. You are arguing that in theory, open borders allow for laborers to take their value to wherever it will benefit them the most. But in reality, it not particularly easy for an individual to pick up and move their entire lives, especially when we are talking about distances on the scale of international travel. So the workers who are willing to move end up being those with the least to lose, meaning those who do end up moving are those willing to settle for less.

Say Mexico and the US opened their borders tomorrow. Do you see American laborers taking their skills to Mexico en masse? Or do you see Mexican laborers taking their skills en masse to America? How do you think the value of an American laborer is affected when the labor market gets flooded with supply, many of whom will likely be willing to work for less than their American counterparts?

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#39

Post by gumby »

geodel wrote: post #7

" “the Democratic Party in the United States transitioned over half a century from the workers’ party to the party of the highly educated.” Elites’ distance from working-class interest, he contends, led the Democratic party and its ideological counterparts abroad to accede to a policy program betraying the values of social democracy: regressive taxation, elite domination of higher education systems, and forms of glob…

> wonder if educated elites being merely oblivious or totally asshole about working class concerns.

I lean to "oblivious" argument. People inherently see things through their own experience.

Back in the 80s I took some classes that tried to break through the bubble (especially funny that it was MIT where I like to joke "if you don't arrive arrogant they'll beat it into you").* This was just before the CMC machine tools arrived so we were working on WWII surplus Bridgeport mills and the like. And we were sent down (literally in the basement of building 35 IIRC) to work on them under the supervision of the folks in blue who were all polite but also unstinting in their criticism (in my case -- I deserved it!). After a few sessions of this, in lecture we were reminded that "you'll be up in the air conditioned design shop sending prints down for these guys to build. They may only have a high education but they are at lest as smart as you guys, often smarter. If you send something stupid to them you'll hear about it". It was a good lesson.

* This is actually an exaggeration: in my experience nice people continued to be nice. But MIT does have quite a few jerks, not all of them intentionally so.

Re: A review of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital and Ideology”

#40

Post by Ididntdothis »

save_ferris wrote: post #29
karatestomp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also why some positions that should be fairly common are effectively impossible to express. For single payer healthcare, against the death penalty, and anti-abortion? You have no good candidates. Pro union, but also for stronger anti-illegal-immigration measures? Ditto. And so on.

I'd argue that's more of a symptom of the rise of identity politics in particular than the two-party system. Policy and political discourse is driven so heavily by identity today that political parties find it easier to coalesce around groups of unrelated issues in order to find their voting base. But I do agree with you in that it's an issue.

The two party system is a big factor because it allows the two parties to stay closely within their positions and voters have nowhere else to go. When I compare this to Germany there the traditional two big parties received a rude wake up call because suddenly the greens and the AFD started rising. So these parties have to refresh themselves unless they want to become irrelevant. In the US there is no such pressure.
Post reply on HN