Piketty's book has a grand title (and some grand "laws"), but its empirical scope is understandably limited to developed countries over the last (not next) 200 years. With that in mind, consider this excerpt from page 261:
No, they're not. They're much richer. To be fair, in context it's clear that Piketty defines "poor" relatively; but that's exactly the problem. The "poor" in developed countries are rich in historical (and global) context. The economic inequality debate generally suffers from a myopia that misleads lay observers. Whatever the evolution of higher moments of the income and wealth distributions in recent decades, almost nobody is poorer in objective terms. A week ago some of us had a Twitter discussion in which someone asked what is the optimal amount of inequality; someone else responded "none", as if 100% poverty is preferable to 10% poverty and 90% riches.
Comparing higher moments of the distributions over time has its uses, but failing to acknowledge the path of that first moment should be considered a cardinal sin.![]()
The poorer half of the population are as poor today as they were in the past.
No, they're not. They're much richer. To be fair, in context it's clear that Piketty defines "poor" relatively; but that's exactly the problem. The "poor" in developed countries are rich in historical (and global) context. The economic inequality debate generally suffers from a myopia that misleads lay observers. Whatever the evolution of higher moments of the income and wealth distributions in recent decades, almost nobody is poorer in objective terms. A week ago some of us had a Twitter discussion in which someone asked what is the optimal amount of inequality; someone else responded "none", as if 100% poverty is preferable to 10% poverty and 90% riches.
Comparing higher moments of the distributions over time has its uses, but failing to acknowledge the path of that first moment should be considered a cardinal sin.