Piketty's Inequality Story in Six Charts from The New Yorker
This short piece reviews the basic graphs from the first part of the book. I found it very helpful as an outline for understanding the relatively dense chapters.
this article gives a brief but insightful synopsis of some Piketty's charts. it helps to see the charts one after another in a consecutive manner. the biggest call-out is Cassidy's point about modernity (between late 19th to early 21st century) relating to rising inequality. as such, the growth rate in both developing countries and advanced economies has been below the rate of return that has led to a continual increase in income inequality.
The brilliance of Piketty's "Capital" is that it is very detailed and well researched but at the same time it's very simple. Just by looking at the second graph one can see that the difference between the bottom and the top is largely accounted for by income from capital. In other words, there are structural differences between the owners of capital and the owners of labor alone. Wage earners are only able to work for money while the capital owners are able to allow their money to work for them. Such structural differences inevitably lead to a divergence between the owners of labor and the capital owners in terms of wealth and income.
Two things: In the last chart, there is a big dip in the 1913-1950 time period. Is the setback in growth attributed to the World Wars? Secondly, is the only message in the fourth chart that there is some inequality elsewhere? If there is another message, what is it, because the inequality actually is still lower than when the data points began. Lastly, and probably the most disturbing trend, is Sameen's lack of capital letters to begin a sentence :)
this article gives a brief but insightful synopsis of some Piketty's charts. it helps to see the charts one after another in a consecutive manner. the biggest call-out is Cassidy's point about modernity (between late 19th to early 21st century) relating to rising inequality. as such, the growth rate in both developing countries and advanced economies has been below the rate of return that has led to a continual increase in income inequality.
ReplyDeleteThe brilliance of Piketty's "Capital" is that it is very detailed and well researched but at the same time it's very simple. Just by looking at the second graph one can see that the difference between the bottom and the top is largely accounted for by income from capital. In other words, there are structural differences between the owners of capital and the owners of labor alone. Wage earners are only able to work for money while the capital owners are able to allow their money to work for them. Such structural differences inevitably lead to a divergence between the owners of labor and the capital owners in terms of wealth and income.
ReplyDeleteTwo things:
ReplyDeleteIn the last chart, there is a big dip in the 1913-1950 time period. Is the setback in growth attributed to the World Wars? Secondly, is the only message in the fourth chart that there is some inequality elsewhere? If there is another message, what is it, because the inequality actually is still lower than when the data points began.
Lastly, and probably the most disturbing trend, is Sameen's lack of capital letters to begin a sentence :)