I have to admit that I still havent read it... but I have a suspicion that Harveys analysis is spot on: What Piketty does show statistically (and we should be indebted to him and his colleagues for this) is that capital has tended throughout its history to produce ever-greater levels of inequality. This is, for many of us, hardly news. It was, moreover, exactly Marx’s theoretical conclusion in Volume One of his version of Capital. Piketty fails to note this, which is not surprising since he has since claimed, in the face of accusations in the right wing press that he is a Marxist in disguise, not to have read Marx’s Capital... There is, however, a central difficulty with Piketty’s argument. It rests on a mistaken definition of capital. Capital is a process not a thing. It is a process of circulation in which money is used to make more money often, but not exclusively through the exploitation of labor power. davidharvey.org/2014/05/afterthoughts-pikettys-capital/?utm_content=bufferf6395&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 00:25:44 +0000