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Piketty's Capital by George Reisman
Piketty’s Capital: Wrong Theory, Destructive Program by George Reisman
This essay is an in-depth critique of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
Kick off the discussion! Questions, comments, observations or elaborations? Either reply here or create a new discussion using the tag Library_pikettys-capital
I am currently reading George Reisman’s CAPITALISM. His dissection and refutation of Keynesianism in Chapter 17 is a masterpiece, so I expect PICKETY’S CAPITAL will effectively puncture Pickety’s hot-air balloon, although Keynesians and progressives (Is there a difference?) will probably remain in the gondola even after it hits the ground hard..
Ned,
People do not change their believes just because they have been proven wrong by using logic. They just do not change them, no matter what! That is why it is something positive that people die. Not because death is good, but because people’s ideas die along with them and a place for new ones is open. My respects to Reisman (I used his book to study economics, by the way) but he could even prove a theorem that Picketty is wrong and it would not matter in the least.
In my personal view Reisman’s biggest contribution is not his criticism of Marxes theory (as some say) or his refutation of Keynesianism (as you say) but his explanation how an economy can grow without the rate of profit to go down. The latter puts him at odds with the standard Austrian believes.
Youliy,
Max Plank wrote:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it
— Max Planck, Scientific autobiography, 1950, p. 33
Ben,
I am glad to read that Max Plank and I share a similar opinion. Thanks for digging out the quote!
Still, what he says is not entirely true. In particular: In the exact sciences there are objective measures if something newly discovered is true (theory, observation, etc.). Scientists test it somehow and if it works they use it. In this way even its most crazy opponents are forced to accept it against their will. The above, however, does not apply (or applies to a limited extent) to the field of social sciences. In this field you can not prove/disprove something by a controlled experiment which could be reproduced by the rest of the scientific community. That is why people feel free to believe in gods,ideologies, extra-terrestrials, etc. They just can easily get away with it.
So, very often scientific truth triumps, most often than not in the exact sciences and less often in the social ones.
I forgot George Reisman was still alive 😮
By now I think it’s time I give his magnum opus a read.
It would be a mistake if Piketty’s book was not thoroughly debunked. George Reisman is the perfect economist to expose its fallacies.
