Fuckin’ A
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Say what you like about Bill’s business tactics, no one ever called him dumb. He is famous for being extremely bright, having a fantastic mind for detail, and knowing a lot about many topics.
I find it difficult to believe that he never learned much about economics or finance. In fact, I find it very easy to believe he knows way more than I do.
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And cherry picking one example isn’t it.
Gates, I’m willing to admit, worked for his money. He started out as a middle class guy like millions of others and built an empire.
I know nothing about Bettencourt. I don’t know how she manages her money. It seems plausible she hired some reasonable financial advisers and they did a pretty good job. Yay for her, it’s good work if you can get it.
To be even a little bit compelling, I’d want to see the trends for large groups of people. If I recall the numbers I’ve seen, the general conclusion is most people (in the US at least) are self-made and their fortunes last at most a generation or two. There are few to no Bourbon or Hapsburg dynasties any more. Even the Vanderbilt fortune, the largest in the US in its day, was gone in less than 100 years.
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I mean, that’s at least in part because we used to tax inheritance and income above a certain level a whole lot more than we do now… Plus the whole Sherman Anti-trust Act which was used to break up a lot of the oil and railroad monopolies, and which in today’s political and regulatory climate would almost certainly never happen…
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I’m not sure it’s possible for one system to do both. Things of which there’s a strictly limited supply, such as land and access to politicians, will tend to gravitate towards the wealthy and away from everyone else. Look at London property prices, for example.
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To be fair to the economists, as a non-economist working on getting through it right now that book is not an easy read.
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I went hunting through a book by my favourite Russian aristo for a quote on these lines. I couldn’t find one, but I did find this, which is at best tangential to your point but still I think worth sharing:
Men are not good enough for Communism, but are they good enough for Capitalism? If all men were good-hearted, kind, and just, they would never exploit each other, although possessing the means of doing so. With such men the private ownership of capital would be no danger.
— Peter Kropotkin, writing in Freedom magazine, 1888.
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Once the zombie apocalypse hits this problem will take care of itself.
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Read the book. The idea of accusing Piketty of not understanding basic statistical principles is pretty laughable.
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People who have money can make investments that make money. Well gosh golly Mister Science, isn’t that a great big huge freaking surprise?
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No shit!
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I suspect that Gates’ motivation re: inheritance wasn’t “level the playing field”, it was “try to reduce the chance of them turning into drug-crazed sybaritic fools”. Hilton/Sheen prevention.
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In addition to serving the poor, socialism serves the rich by shielding them from otherwise toxic concentrations of wealth.
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Eh, from what I understand a million ain’t what it used to be.
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Or for some of us, it’s just working for a living.
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Finland is way too high. We have massive income inequality and a lot nepotism and good brother networks to keep the plebs from moving up. Or are other countries that much worse?
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No idea how to measure it but Gates/Microsoft have certainly created lots of wealth for others not just through the market but also job creation. Picketey OTOH?
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But, like Jesus said, “The poor will always be with us. After all, who else is going to make my religion the fastest growing, wealthiest player in the faith business?”
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I suspect the latter…
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Pikkety, like other writers, intellectuals, and artists, creates a wealth of knowledge, discussion, ideas, love, hope, integrity, innovation, culture, joy, etc. I’d take a good book over a $12k watch or Prada jacket anyday (considering my basic needs are met).
And for a lot of us it’s working (and not making a living) to create wealth for someone who doesn’t even know we exist.
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