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Flash Boys Has Been Dethroned At The Top Of The Amazon Bestseller List By This Book
From a critique of pure capitalist algorithmic frontrunning (which was at the top Amazon bestseller spot until a few days ago)...
... we go to a critique of pure capitalism.
Which of course, is merely a rehash of a critique of all capitalism as expounded some 150 years ago by this book.
And to think all it took was 147 years of 'capitalism' for the circle to be complete from Das Kapital's labor-vs-capital Marxist manifesto to Thomas Piketty's Capital "exposing capitalism's fatal flaw" topping the Amazon book charts. One wonders who finds the time to read the 696 page tome whose core thesis is well-known for socialists the world over: under capitalism the rich, or hoarders of capital, get steadily richer in relation to everyone else; inequality gets worse and worse and it's all unavoidable, between #Selfies, The Voice semi-finals, and Dance Moms finales.
One thing is certain: the financial asset tax we warned about back in 2011 is coming with a bang.
So, communism's heyday is coming again, right? Maybe. One thing is certain: liberals couldn't be more delighted about mandatory equality. But as we discussed yesterday, there is one thing that no one seems to want to discuss about Piketty's findings... gold...
Well, feature the chart that Professor Piketty publishes showing inequality in America. This appears in the book at figure 9.8; a similar version, shown alongside here, is offered on his Web site. It’s an illuminating chart. It shows the share of national income of the top decile of the population. It started the century at a bit above 40% and edged above 45% in the Roaring Twenties. It plunged during the Great Depression and edged down in World War II, and then steadied out, until we get to the 1970s. Something happened then that caused income inequality to start soaring. The top decile's share of income went from something like 33% in 1971 to above 47% by 2010.
Hmmm. What could account for that? Could it be the last broadcast of the “Lawrence Welk Show?” Or the blast off of the Apollo 14 mission to the Moon? Or could it have something to do with the mysterious D.B. Cooper, who bailed out of the plane he hijacked, never to be seen again? A timeline of 1971 offers so many possibilities. But, say, what about the possibility that it was in the middle of 1971, in August, that America closed the gold window at which it was supposed to redeem in specie dollars presented by foreign central banks. That was the default that ended the era of the Bretton Woods monetary system.
That’s the default that opened the age of fiat money. Or the era that President Nixon supposedly summed up in with Milton Friedman’s immortal words, “We’re all Keynesians now.” This is an age that has seen a sharp change in unemployment patterns. Before this date, unemployment was, by today’s standards, low. This was a pattern that held in Europe (these columns wrote about it in “George Soros’ Two Cents”) and in America (“Yellen’s Missing Jobs”). From 1947 to 1971, unemployment in America ran at the average rate of 4.7%; since 1971 the average unemployment rate has averaged 6.4%. Could this have been a factor in the soaring income inequality that also emerged in the age of fiat money?
This is the question the liberals don’t want to discuss, even acknowledge.
h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer
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We humans are flawed and there is no perfect system that will accommodate these flaws. Carry on my friends...
Perhaps a reading of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" would cure you of the thing erroneously called greed. Self interest is the most liberating, equalitarian, productive notion ever conjured.
JopeTierney - Capitalism is not bribing govermnent to crush competition and not pay taxes. That is corruption, plain and simple. All systems of govermemt are prone to it. Of course, that corruption means robbery by sociopaths. Labels aside eventually people find a way to stop it.
Game theory and supercomputers including the quantum computer aside of course. The quantum computer is a tool. Tools reflect our human evolution, still fallable to human programming seeking real answers, the solution to paradoxes being creational thinking not a bot of expecteding answers.
Out of respect for investors, I will say the response to hand it all off to China came from the government and we were sold out by the government. Why does it seem those in power massively overeact or undereact? Doesn't the supercomputing reveal anthing? Nah, it reveals what they want it to say.
The massive calculations of the quantum computer is impressive, almost defies the laws of current undertanding of the physics of thermodynamics. Of course, we miss the forest through the trees again for trade when in reality we have discovered a whole new "world" so to speak. No different than early Europeans looking to sail West to reach Asia faster for trade and descovering a continent. But I digress...
JopeTierney - Capitalism is not bribing govermnent to crush competition and not pay taxes. That is corruption, plain and simple. All systems of govermemt are prone to it. Of course, that corruption means robbery by sociopaths. Labels aside eventually people find a way to stop it.
Game theory and supercomputers including the quantum computer aside of course. The quantum computer is a tool. Tools reflect our human evolution, still fallable to human programming seeking real answers, the solution to paradoxes being creational thinking not a bot of expecteding answers.
Out of respect for investors, I will say the response to hand it all off to China came from the government and we were sold out by the government. Why does it seem those in power massively overeact or undereact? Doesn't the supercomputing reveal anthing? Nah, it reveals what they want it to say.
The massive calculations of the quantum computer is impressive, almost defies the laws of current undertanding of the physics of thermodynamics. Of course, we miss the forest through the trees again for trade when in reality we have discovered a whole new "world" so to speak. No different than early Europeans looking to sail West to reach Asia faster for trade and descovering a continent. But I digress...
German Socialism = 20 million dead
Russian Communism = 40 million dead
China Totalitarianism = 80 million dead
Thanks for showin up 'Sharin' & Carin'' Karl! I don't know what the 'F' we would have done without you!
Over what period of time? Out of what population?
But it is clear that nothing beats 'americanism' in this regard. It is simple: 'americans' dropped the body count, it was so good.
There is an excellent chance you are either clinical insane or suffer from intense stoooopidism! Stay away from sharp objects!
'Americans' and rhetorics. Never changes.
Does not prevent them from introducing themselves as the heirs of the western civilization.
Please tell us you have no children or are not planning to have any!
And it goes on. 'Americanism', the best thing to have ever happened to humanity.
So 'americans' say...
You believe then 40 or 80 million in the aggregrate is lacking context needing some better illumination? Perhaps the numbers need to be figured on a per capita basis?
'Americans' are never short of tricks to try to buy a new cherry to their nazi friends.
i think by americanism you really mean banksterism
Pol Pot's experiment with the Khmer Rouge's idea of Socialism....1/3 of the nation's population murdered and starved to death.
Supported by the CIA and only 'saved' by intervention by the socialist Vietnam.
General dynamics, leasons learned from pain. Gold or no gold it is a violation of trust. It's called cheating. I like the the term honest competition. I do not like competition but I know if I offer better value I can beat my competition. Yeah, I can get off on that too and indulge a little ego and vanity and claim my prizes of nicer ass, car and home.
On the opposite is cheating. Bribing government. I may get the ass, car and home but the wife is a fucking bitch that only blows me for jewelry, I am fearful of other cheaters most times and may wonder when my meal server is slitting in my food or poisoning it as he/she says "have a nice day". Oh don't forget the mob that eventually figures it out and literally wants m head on a platter. Choose. Choose to add value or cheat. One takes loner than the other. Choose wisely.
Competition is a quantifying process. Quantifying is relative and requires a rule.
Manipulating the rule (the yardstick) is the best competitive edge one can provide to oneself.
The thing is that 'americans', in their great competition, have always manipulated the rule.
For example, when the Indians legitimate claim on their ancestors'land was confirmed, the rule was manipulated.
'americans', so funny, they think people cant see.
Life will appear much brighter for you when u move out of your parents basement!
An 'american' hero...
AnAnonymous - Mr. "Ameriwhika bad Chinka good" look at how fat yuh people are getting in China 'blobbing up'. They now rheserbe cuhrancy ahble to ahfohd $800,00 kah. Now we in Amehika can make much fhun of Chinpokemon bhobbing up. Now can get nice and thwin in Amehicka wohkin fuh slave wage like phioa Chinman did and yell at yu fur being impehaiahiast pig. Meanwhile, ovalohd banka Rotchschild and Centhal banka fwhanchises in each nation all laugh at ihgnohance globally by citzen but I get paid to be blogahh. Hahaha make me laugh.
Another 'american' hero.
It makes think of that 'american' poster who claim that racial slurring was low on this site, and the doing of a minority.
Here's another 'american' who feels the urge to attribute a racial group to a poster in order to use some racial slurring.
This is how deep racism runs in 'americans'. They cant do without it.
dupe
Marx's critiques of capitalism were actually spot-on, and many of his social and phenomenological observations are both interesting and important. The tragedy and the irony of all this, is that it is the least remembered portion of his work. He is now discussed only in relation to his prescriptive remedies, which were disastrous. It is all part and parcel of the great intellectual tragedy of the 19th century - a bookworthy topic if ever there was one. For a sampling, let us take the four sociological titans of the 1800s and see how their work has been abused: Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Darwin.
Marx, as has already been said, produced one of the clearest adumbrations of the horrors that would ensue under pure capitalism, Das Kapital. His Communist Manifesto, on the other hand, is a piece of trite political pabulum that had no hope of offering solutions. But it was an invaluable tool for rabble-rousing and agitation, and its true value was quickly grasped by the disaffected, nihilistic thugs who put forth the communist revolutions in every country. It was just a slogan, a permission to get rowdy, as all revolutionary ideas are. Sadly, this has completely obscured the significance of Marx's other work. That which is most useful in him has been entirely neglected.
Nietzsche, widely hailed as a forerunner to the Nazi party, actually hated anti-semites with a passion. Although ridiculed down to the present day for his atheism and immorality, what he actually assailed were precisely the inadequate concepts of God and morality that had taken over European Christendom in the form of bourgeois sentimentality. He was in his heart naturally disposed to be the most God-fearing of men, and in a different century would have no doubt made a Savonarola or a Torquemada, and been remembered as a lion of faith.
Freud, whose thought is now more pertinent than ever, is correspondingly more neglected than ever. There was absolutely nothing new in Freud's treatment of the id, ego, and superego; the same or similar ideas had been held down through the centuries as simple common sense, and are on that very account true. What Freud did was to give the ideas a more literary and scientific treatment, and in so doing opened the door to various abuses. Today most people scoff at Freud as "completely discredited" when nothing could be further from the truth. Reality cannot be discredited, but authors who make a bad use of it bring reality into disrepute, and that has been a devastating bane for us. A widely diffused, carefully corrected Freudian psychology would act as quite a curative on our drug- and stimulus-addled society.
Darwin, the only one of the four whose ideas retain broad currency, is quite naturally the only one of the four who is perfectly, categorically wrong in every respect. Darwinism is not plausible even as a theory; for it runs counter to numerous first principles in ontology and is even belied by natural science and observation. Immanuel Kant considered "Darwinism" a century before Darwin even wrote it, and was able at that time to show the absurdity of it. The ancient Greeks had done the same thing 2000 years avant la lettre. In a sane world, Darwin would have been ruled out of court from the beginning. In our world, he is held as a hero.
I know this thumnail sketch is cryingly incomplete; but please, think before you junk. As I said, it is a bookworthy topic, and one cannot do it justice in a comment.
4 major 'F-ups' that we would have all been better without!
No.
One (Darwin) who should have been summarily dismissed.
Two (Nietzsche, Freud) whom we could have made much better use of and whose reputation suffered at the hands of their oversolicitous friends.
And one (Marx) who, like a fallen angel, became a demon when he might have been a helper. Thus the tragedy.
Nope! All u need to do is look at the pile of 140m dead bodies these sweethears were responsible for! Beyond demonic!
I can't recall any of these men killing a single person, nor did they call for the death of anyone except in rather extreme cases. Do you even have any idea what I'm talking about, or are you just trying to be confrontational?
Well, let's just say that over a hundred million were murdered in the promotion of socialism.
If someone 200 years from now goes on a murderous rampage due to something you posted on the Internet today, are you responsible?
GoosShettpimg Moron - What kind of screen is that? Anyways, I didn't want to downvote you because these philosophers wanted equality, but to me equality should not trump the concept of liberty - self deterimation. But the noble strive for equality at the point of the gun via governments fails. It is always used as an exuse to rob one portion of a society. "They are savages" or "they are not educated" or "they are not enlightened". Excuses to rob land and resources. Every. Single. TIME.
Maybe I should make a manifesto. I'll write about equality then label it "Use my deficient personality to make excuses to rob someone so I may live a better life and politicians can get votes".
As for me, I was lucky and born with some gifts of mind. Unlucky I had folks that didn't get along so I couldn't go to Haaavahd and be part of the club. I guess I could still if I wanted to be Machevalian. I WANT to help those deficiant catch up. I have my own problems but less than some others, luck of the vagina so to speak.
At the end of the day though you can only lead a horse to water not force him to drink. Or, perhaps consider this saying: For those with an ear. For the truly mentally retarded I will feed them and hang out with them. Why? Because I can and they can't. I don't need a gun to my head to enrich those that want to buy votes in politics to advance the concept of equality, to me this is what Marx was advocating and it does have some value. The politicians prey on the mentally retarded, black whatever. Obama to me was fooled into thinking he was someone special when to me he is just a plantation worker and was fooled. Ya he gets the digs but now he is hated forever and no more black President for the next 100 years. Nice Star Trek plot for black Enson Benson who always seems to die on that "dangerous planet" by acting supid. Bad script, you people at the top are not creative. You bore me.
A hundred plus year ago maybe if Marx had a chill pill he might have mentioned an addendum to his writings something along what I just said, help advance the species because you can. A mentor taught me to give back to the community. Simple right? No. I thought of it for years as to why. The "why" is we are all imperfect, we will make mistakes as we try to compete by adding value. But giving back balances out the equation. Not lip service and PR but because you actually give a shit about your fellow man that got born less lucky than you. That small percent you help also adds value so they can also do the same. In the end we all move forward. It is a multiplying effect. Robbery, in cute words whatever the form detracts value. Decreases wealth even those that at first can bribe the government. Marxism is a fail. Crony Capitalism is Fascism. Also fail. Bribing the government is not innovation, that has happened for many thousands of years with the same result. Fail.
dupe - back to my iPhone despite paying high speed connection speed is throttled so dupes. My apologies.
Let's face it, at this point Capitalism's brand is uh, kind of tarnished.
And remember that Marx wrote this stuff in a period of extreme inequality.
Pure capitalism is not. Only facists and communists would agree.
Thanks for the insights. I've never read any of those books, except for the cliff notes, but I think you're right: it's a worthy topic. The only history books I read are about physics, math and music.
I love how scumbags like Piketty ignore all of the interference in the markets by the criminals of government and the undermining of same via counterfeit money by the banksters. They then still have the gall to call all the shit-falls they see around them "failures of capitalism.” He and the rest like him wouldn't know capitalism if it bit them in the ass and it hung on like a barracuda.
I like how he and his ilk bemoan "income inequality" and the need for the criminals of government to "fix" it, while claiming to not be socialist or communist. Talk about tunnel vision. And then their "fix" is more of the cause, the criminals of government in cahoots with the counterfeiting banksters.
Of course they always ignore or spin the wonderful time in American history of "damn near Liberty" from about 1786 to 1913.
Whirlpool of lies and ignorance to the sewer.
Sidenote: Marx himself was born into a middle-class family and was too lazy to go out and accomplish something productive--he like living off of the tit of his parents. His preference was for sitting in libraries dreaming up new ways to justify his laziness. He happened to be a good writer and left us, mankind, with screeds to laziness. Two of his screeds, now referred to as "manifestos," ever since have had scheming sociopaths tapping them to justify robbing more treasure, dignity and life from the people.
communism is fucking bullshit if any of you want it you are lying to yourselves and should be exiled to your own country of assholes
Socialists deserve nothing but utter contempt. They have no rights or expectations of even the most common of courtesties or civility. Their mere presence is traitorous to the Constitution. That is not intolerant, but the recognition of what socialists embody and think about my Constitution.
Of course they do. After all it's the ONLY type of system that has ever failed! </sarc>
If you care to be really educated as to how things work, or not work:
http://www.rexresearch.com/glubb/glubb-empire.pdf
BAD SYSTEMS FAIL. And, surprise, they're ALL failing now- common element is having a basis set in the notion of pursuing perpetual growth on a finite planet.
The system did not fail, the People failed the system. Not a sematic riddle.
Save your breath. Their Liberal Arts education has kicked in!
I must have been sleeping all through college, cause I have a liberal arts degree.
Seer - Shed up. The Malthusians were proven wrong after over 100 years. Go back to 1890 supposed "wise man Seer" Supply side economics is an idelogy of scarcity over abundance. Our growth does not move in a straight line up. It may decline for a short time only.
Your reasoning based on population growth alone of 2 B in 1914 vs. 7 B in 2012 does does not require any more argument. Your logic fails by raw numbers alone but debate me please and I will go three levels deep in facts. Your posts suck probably the worst of all. They have no depth to them whatsoever.
We had all (including me) get far more creative in our thinking to mitigate loss and resume posterity.
Here's my argument: Our ego tells us we have the same exact situation and form forever when pybsics now has proven otherwise. Einstein had quite a bit to say about this topic of ego but read some more Malthus.
Your ego dies with you as does mine at death and whether we live a billion years or 85 the physics of entropy cannot be stopped, only slowed. 4d is less than a planck length in diameter. This is known not a theory. I do theorize only a fraction of our code or DNA can fit and be seeded there. Similar to birth aI suppose in this dimension. Time will tell if this theory is correct as we are now punching holes in 4d. In any event, "we're all gonna run out and die" makes for great idealogies for monopolies. Perhaps you like paying more for less value? Here is what I know. We all
collectively have a lot to learn.
The only reasons Malthus was wrong (at the time) were the developments of petroagriculture and haber-bosch process to synthesize nitrates.
If you want to make plans based on blind faith that a new technology will always be invented in time to avoid calamity, go for it.
I suspect it is wiser to plan based on existing technology, and be pleasantly surprised if new technology comes along and saves the day.
Malthus went wrong because he could not envision the incredible disparity in consumption that would come with 'americanism'.
In Malthus'time, the world, in terms of consumption per capita, was on an equal basis.
Malthus grew his model with that in mind. That is why he had it wrong.
I wish I understood what this guy just said.
Translation: we can print moar welfs, comrade!
That is a very interesting read.
But comrade, forvards eemayreekahn!
Vee can call be equal eef only zee government gives a helping hand!
Never question that shitty premise of perpetual growth on a finite planet. Check!
Or infinate stooopidity!
The human nature greed factor is exactly why capitalism must be regulated in a way to counteract and attempt to level the playing field. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than communism or pure socialism, yes. Are we a long way from the level playing field necessary for capitalism to function correctly? Yes.
In the next Olympics I want a 50m head start in the 100m race so I can have a better chance of winning a gold medal! Just to make it fair!
I am a bit amazed at these reponses which seem to indicate there should be no regulation at all in a capitalist system. No anti-trust laws. No laws against forging financial documents. No nothing. Very interesting.
My exact point was that everyone should start from the same starting line. Get it? I didn't say anything about anyone getting a head start. That's exactly what I am saying there should be regulation for. So someone isn't allowed to game the system and get that 50m head start.
Most of the comments posted on ZH are far and above better than other sites on the net. But, I would soundly reject anyone who feels captialism can function with some form of regulation. That's right, the need for this is primarly driven by the greed function that drives people to take any advantage they can in order to get more for themselves. You do not find people gaming the system in order to disadvantage themselves.
Human nature 101.
'Everyone should start at the same starting line?' Since when? At what point does regulation become control? All monopolies and oligopolies are heavily regulated with effective legal barriers to competition. Are there any more 'gamed' systems than those? Are there any greedier entities than those? Do you criticize the athlete who wants to take advantage of their competition to score more points or win for themselves? The playing field is rarely level or fair. Those disadvantages are easier to overcome. The regulated structure is almost impossible to beat.
Again, you missed the point. Regulations are laws and laws are required for a capitalist system to function. Is capitalism perfect? No, as I stated, we are a good ways away from a level enough playing field. However, the level playing field is still the goal. If you want to argue that we shouldn't have laws or a level field, then there is no point of continuing the discussion.
The points you are making regarding monopolies and oligopolies are examples of how regulation is failing, not examples of why we should eliminate all regulation.
As long as the athlete abides for the rules of the game, it is healthy and fair competition. No one is going to criticize them.
Midnight Rider - A Republic - ALL subject to the law. Fascism, Communism blah blah = Laws for you, no laws for me. Society collapses. Republics are the best we get but I am open to suggestions as to how to enforce the principle that laws apply to ALL!
Midnight Rider - A Republic - ALL subject to the law. Fascism, Communism blah blah = Laws for you, no laws for me. Society collapses. Republics are the best we get but I am open to suggestions as to how to enforce the principle that laws apply to ALL!
Do you understand the meaning of the word, level"?
Lenin couldn't have stated it more clearly...
Read further comments below. You completely missed the point of my response.
Human "greed" is a reality for a few. However, most of us want just enough to last to our death by our own productivity saved for when we age. Impossible in communistic society. Only possible in capitalistic societies can be break free. Working on it now. All the moochers would appreciate my efforts im sure.
Communism is Capitalism in decay
- wasn't it Lenin (Øbama's mentor) that said such a thing?
Time to start NOT listening to those paracites!
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. #Winning #KeepStacking
Capitalism.. Wow! Where did they source that?
Das Kredit Kard. That is the title of my new book. Chapter One is entitled "Default". So far, that is the only chapter I have written. I couldn't think of anything else to write after titling the chapter.
Dance Moms? At first, I thought it was a clever joke by Tyler but still did my own due diligence only to find out that it is fucking real! What do they do on that show? Bitch and complain at one another the whole time in between Geico commercials? I guess I am way out of touch.
We are so fucked.
Watch maxxed out for some further inspiration.
Those book lists are just another tool in the diabolical globalists tool chest to create your reality. Also, capitalism is oligarchic and has nothing to do with free enterprise. It's more mind fu*&ing.
Capitalism, the unknown ideal.
You all would make McCarthy blush
McCarthy was absolutely correct.
ARGGGHHAHAHAHAHAHA....About what? Seeing Communists under every rock? I suppose you think Nixon was right too?
You don't read much xcept Lame Stream Media...do you Dick. Check conviction rates... ole Joe was 110% correct. Fuck 'em and Fuck you.
You a real dick... Dick.
America closed the gold window at which it was supposed to redeem in specie dollars presented by foreign central banks.
So, we are to reopen the gold window? Let people redeem their dollars in specie?
How are we to get around the shortage problem ... only 1oz of gold per person on earth?
And by the way, are we really stuck with choosing between these two failed systems ... capitalism and communism? Are there really no other choices?
Wow !!! I just read a radical book purchased on Amazon called the "Unforgiven" by a radical named Alan LeMay. He was crazy enough to believe in [sarc] independant Americans !!{Real Western Novel}
The book I recommend fellow patriots to read is "Essential Liberty" by a crazy guy named Bob Oliver !!
Please , join the NRA
The NRA came within a RCH of endorsing Dirty Harry Reid in 2010. Only because the rank and file started screaming did the leadership back down. Better to join, imo, Gun Owners of America.
I prefer an honest days work. a handshake and a done deal, working to earn your keep. I prefer honesty and transparency and sound business. splitting ideological hairs by trying to determine if your business model/economy is capitalist or communist or socialist is a bunch of bunk, nothing more than graduate level intellectual masturbation I run a 3rd generation family owned and operated dirt/mulch/stone stockyard in NC. We run two front-end loaders and two dump trucks. We deal with cash or check only! credit cards and credit card companies can go to hell. "financiers" and the whole rest of the bunch can also go to hell. most people do value our "old fashioned" way of doing business. those who dont usually go to walmart and get their mulch or dirt in a bag. you buy from us you help support our family of 7 and our crew of 4. You go to wal mart et al you help support the robber barons of bentonville, Arkansas.
Maybe, but a set of ideological principals that embody what you consider important seems in order, like the rule of law, minimal gov't interference....picking winners and losers etc is in order. Maybe a Constitution is in order. I think you're referencing the golder rule, but in Amerika that's akin to blasphemy, kinda like in those socialistic states of lore.
High Speed Trading: The Flash Boys Make Their Case
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-flash-boys-make-their-case/
LOL! That was pretty well done so +1. Is that your blog?
Amazon should be giving away das Kapital.
It is quite bourgeoisei to be selling a book about communism.
You can't sell a book promoting communism, that's capitalism.
When pregnant women worked coal mines in England during the Industrial Revolution, after they gave birth, they were expected to return to work the same day.
No vacations, no days off, no nothing, get to work, you filthy swine.
The Mines Act of 1842 was a result of corporations treating people like trash.
You can't treat people like animals like govs do now.
It will end badly.
It's clear you haven't the slightest idea what socialism is.
Of course you can sell a book in a socialist system. But the profits would be shared with those that helped to print the book and distribute it, and proofread it and edit it and market it and publish it. Not just hoarded by Amazon.
Ironically, bookselling is one of the more socialist areas of our economy, wherein the worker (i.e., the writer) keeps a much larger percentage of what he has created than does the worker in many other areas. In most other areas, the owners of industry are remunerated far out of propoertion to the social value of the work they do. Some of them dont' even do any work at all; they simply hold capital, and rent it out. *That* is the true capitalist -- the man that does not work at all, but lives off of the rent of his inherited money or his ill-gotten fortune. Examine any oligarchical family in American and you will find that there is either a history of illegal activity, or a single genius that has created a fortune so vast, and so far out of whack with the social value of the work done by the genius, that the family will live on in riches forever, even though none of them create a damn thing. Think: Kennedy, Rockefeller, Soros (what has George Soros created?) Koch, Walton, Heinz... the list goes on.
The sad truth about capitalism is that it rewards a tiny fraction of people far out of proportion to what they create. And it continues to survive because the entire Right wing of America, even the poor people in Appalachia, have a lottery mentality about their own chances of someday becoming rich.
Newsflash: you're never going to be rich. You're going to die poor. Your children will be even poorer than you. And it's all because of what you believe, which is that a "free market" gives just rewards, and that a man has a right to keep as much wealth as he can get his hands on, no matter how he got it, because if he "owns" it, then he "earned" it. You are wrong about all of it, but you still get to vote, even though you'e a moron.
Sam Walton was no silver spoon like Marx.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Walton
As for each generation being poorer, you can thank the Federal Reserve for that. I thought you were making some misguided but cogent statements until this one. You're off.
You're a very sick person; stop the junk1; you've signed up for a bullshit idea about the world you live in that's not real.
Amazon does not make more money than the printers and proofreaders; who do not work for free. You are really crazy.
Pure communism is fine as is pure capitalism. In pure communism, labor is shared and the fruits of the labor are shared. In capitalism, the worth of labor is determined by the market (society) and one is able to keep the fruits of that labor.
Unfortunately, governments exist, and unless the goverment is comprised of citizens donating their free time for the cause, destroy the pureness of either system.
" In capitalism, the worth of labor is determined by the market"
The great flaw of capitalism is that it fails to recognize that the economic value of labor and the social value of labor are not the same thing.
This is why capitalism will not survive. Humans are primarily social creatures, not economic creatures.
Really? I'm not. Can't be. To ignore the economics or let it be second-level priority leads immediately to shortages of food.
no, in pure SOCIALISM labour is shared, in pure COMMUNISM the quality & quantity of labour is enforced to strictly be equal. You're punished for working too hard no matter the selfless benefit to the larger collective in COMMUNISM. In Socialism this isn't so.
How does Pikketty know? Where exactly do we have free-market capitalism? Global banking? health care? Energy? Education?
Of course we don't have "free market" capitalism. Most people dont' want to hop (or be kicked) from one Great Depression to the next. So we opt for regulation instead, when we can get it, when it is not being undermined by capitalist lobbyists or gutted by capitalist Presidents or just plain ignored by capitalist Attorney Generals.
so far Great Depressions have been caused by centralizing anti-capitalism. It's never been any other way so far.
The Book is wrong. He doesn't know. If you Google the title you'll be presented with a discussion by someone who will correctly dissect it; leaving only a corpse behind.
The problem with capitalism is that people are so stupid they keep rediscovering collectivism every generation and voting for it instead of regulating capitalism in a constructive way.
Capitalism regulates itself.
Regulators (law enforcers) are part of the capitalist system, so yes, capitalism regulates itself. If you want to contemplate a system without any laws, good luck.
Natural laws are embedded in capitalism that regulate it. They are immutable. Capitalism is a natural phenomenon arising out of human nature. You can observe the laws and write them down if you like for the vast majority who can't observe them for themself and probably can't internalize them anyway no matter how carefully you spell it out. Capitalism regulates itself. Perhaps you are mixing up cronyism, fascism, a "mixed economy" or some other ism with capitalism; you have never experienced capitalism on a macro level because it has never existed on that level. There are those of us who live it very well on our own terms at the micro level however, and its alive there.
Capitalist ideologues, for instance Reagan or Ayn Rand, consider regulation to be an anthema to capitalism.
This is why the Sherman antitrust act has not been enforced since 1980. It is why Clinton signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which is the direct cause of the financial crisis (which was NOT caused by government underwriting of home loans for poor people, as the capitalist ideologues would have you believe.) Even Clinton was a capitalist. If you want an American President that actually understands that capital needs to be controlled like any other social disease, you have to go all the way back to FDR.
So it would appear that you are in disagreement with the people who are actually carrying out capitalism (or "wreaking" it on the people, as I would say) as to exactly what constitutes capitalism.
Oh Bullshit. Capitalism is best left to the small market and local management. The problem is this all encompassing bohemoth governmental control. This becomes cronyism. You think your precious socialism is immune to oligarchical manifestations? All of these economic systems devolve over time if they are left unchecked. This brings me to my point that capitalism only works with a functioning justice system and rule if law. Corzine should have been executed.
Uh, no. Capitalism does not regulate itself. Capitalism cannot even save itself. It requires public funding to stay afloat, in direct contradiction to the tenets of its faithful.
....and socialism is self-sustaining?
can be. Generally tribal life is somewhat socialist but this depends on the culture. The Native Americans before being almost entirely wiped out generally were fairly socialist but weren't against the market-nature of capitalism. Too bad they were massacred.
You have no idea what you're talking about. this is complete rubbish.
What's all this talk about isms and ideologies?
You are wasting your time and your energy.
This is about Self-Absorption of the pathological variety, come to a head, in all the wrong places.
While it's certainly bigger this time, it isn't new.
And instead of wasting your energy on isms and ideologies,
it would best be directed at points of control -- the failure points -- the weakest links in the plan, given ignorance of the masses.
It used to be called "congress."
Capitalism is when a person owns stuff that is used to produce other stuff that people are willing to trade stuff for. All that stuff is capital and it ebbs and flows with the skills, luck and energy of the dude who owns the capital. Even if you've got a bunch of capital you have to use energy and speculation (risk) to keep it at its original stuff swapping value plus some extra (yield). If you have too much capital thats hard to do before you run out of energy and luck, and even if you don't you'll run out of time and somebody/s else will get that capital to mess around with. Besides capital can spring up out of seemingly nowhere (people decide they want a pet rock) and vanish to nowhere (people don't want a pet rock no more). Nobody can corner capital, especially in a free market, unless Satans soon to be coming world king declares at the point of a gun that he owns everything, including all of us.
"capital can spring up out of ... nowhere."
Wow, you are completely lost.
Human decisions create and destroy objects that perform as capital, just like that, on a fad, whim, desire or need. I guess you will reject an offer of a 1000 bitcoin that came out of nowhere. Perhaps you would prefer Lord Rothchilds digital dollars because their value comes from nowhere but your belief that they have value. I wonder what will happen when you and a whole bunch of people stop believing that. I bought bitcoin when they were worth cents because I believed they had something going there. I am not sure that you understand the nature of capital as it relates to the human condition.
Capitalism???
Where is that being practiced?
We have Fascism by the special interest groups in firm control of our "elected" reps...fascism masquerading as capitalism.
It might be fascist, but it is still capitalism.
Here is the litmus test:
In a capitalist system, there are more protections for capital than there are for people.
In a socialist system, it's the reverse.
In a capitalist system, money is more important than people.
And that is the value system of capitalist America. The fascist or creeping-totalitarian aspects are completely irrelevant to economic analysis. They help capitalism to perfect itself, if they do anything at all. They certainly do not stand in its way.
"In a socialist system, it's the reverse."
Are you going to say that socialism has never been implemented?
Never, pal.
That's why it was called utopia or Utopian Socialism. There never were societies in which all people lived like equals.
Everybody is equal in prison.
Nope. Maybe some monestaries though.
Incorrect. THIS is the litmus test: in a capitalist system individual PERSONS, not corporations, own the means of production & there is no central control then over production of any good or service, including money, which means no central bank. Therefore with corporations using Fascism to control world governments & central bank corporations controlling national currencies there is zero capitalism.
Capitalism & Fascism are mutually exclusive. Using one instantly destroys the use of the other.
A socialist system is not the reverse or inverse of either.
A socialist system is collective ownership of the means of production but it's still people rather than ficticiously-formed or named national or multi-national corporations. Socialism doesn't even require centralization because many worker co-ops, each socialist, can co-exist & act together either in a market-driven manner or a collective group-owned-group manner. Again, that is 0% fascism 0% capitalism.
Seems like you guys took your eyes off the ball.
Remember Andrew Jackson: "It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes... In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government."
Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Second Bank of the United States
"If you want your Socialism, you can keep your Socialism."
"This is the question the liberals don’t want to discuss, even acknowledge."
Uh, well first of all, Nixon was a Republican and a conservative. Secondly, it is capitalism that is creating the enormous wealth disparity, since clearly we do not have socialism in the U.S.
90% of the financial wealth in America is held by the top 5%. This is the most severe wealth inequality in the developed world, worse even than oligarchical Russia.
The capitalist experiement appears to be playing out exactly as Marx said it would.
Except its not a capitalist experiment. If you read more of the comments below a lot of people are using the word fascist, which is the correct terminology.
Go beyond, my friend.
Yes. As well as for Macchiavelli, there are different readings of it.
I believe - said Althusser - that the Ideological State Apparatus which has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations as a result of a violent political and ideological class struggle against the old dominant Ideological State Apparatus, is the educational ideological apparatus.
Analize why some authors (and the way to read them) are more promoted than others.
It takes children from every class at infant-school age, and then for years, the years in which the child is most ‘vulnerable’, squeezed between the Family State Apparatus and the Educational State Apparatus, it drums into them, whether it uses new or old methods, a certain amount of ‘know-how’ wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, arithmetic, natural history, the sciences, literature) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics, civic instruction, philosophy). Somewhere around the age of sixteen, a huge mass of children are ejected ‘into production’: these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on: and, for better or worse, it goes somewhat further, until it falls by the wayside and fills the posts of small and middle technicians, white-collar workers, small and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to provide, as well as the ‘intellectuals of the collective labourer’, the agents of exploitation (capitalists, managers), the agents of repression (soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators, etc.) and the professional ideologists (priests of all sorts, most of whom are convinced ‘laymen’).
Each mass ejected en route is practically provided with the ideology which suits the role it has to fulfil in class society: the role of the exploited (with a ‘highly-developed’ ‘professional’, ‘ethical’, ‘civic’, ‘national’ and a-political consciousness); the role of the agent of exploitation (ability to give the workers orders and speak to them: ‘human relations’), of the agent of repression (ability to give orders and enforce obedience ‘without discussion’, or ability to manipulate the demagogy of a political leader’s rhetoric), or of the professional ideologist (ability to treat consciousnesses with the respect, i.e. with the contempt, blackmail, and demagogy they deserve, adapted to the accents of Morality, of Virtue, of ‘Transcendence’, of the Nation, of France’s World Role, etc.).
Of course, many of these contrasting Virtues (modesty, resignation, submissiveness on the one hand, cynicism, contempt, arrogance, confidence, self-importance, even smooth talk and cunning on the other) are also taught in the Family, in the Church, in the Army, in Good Books, in films and even in the football stadium. But no other Ideological State Apparatus has the obligatory (and not least, free) audience of the totality of the children in the capitalist social formation, eight hours a day for five or six days out of seven.
(...)
it is not their real conditions of existence, their real world, that ‘men’ ‘represent to themselves’ in ideology, but above all it is their relation to those conditions of existence which is represented to them there. It is this relation which is at the centre of every ideological, i.e. imaginary, representation of the real world. It is this relation that contains the ‘cause’ which has to explain the imaginary distortion of the ideological representation of the real world. Or rather, to leave aside the language of causality it is necessary to advance the thesis that it is the imaginary nature of this relation which underlies all the imaginary distortion that we can observe (if we do not live in its truth) in all ideology.
Taking that into account, it's worth reading.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm
THIS IS NOT CAPITALISM.
This is CRONY-Capitalism that is matastisizing into fascism.
Wow.. you are stupid. Are you a Khardasian?
It plays out somewhat like Marx said... IF... predators-DBA-corporations and predators-DBA-government are partners and allies. Which they certainly are in the west.
The fact is, Marx is completely wrong... IF... reality plays out where fictional frauds like "corporation" and "government" are not imposed by force on individual human beings.
ALL these theories make a huge number of assumptions that are NOT NECESSARY assumptions. A theorist can prove just about anything... if they find the set of assumptions that makes their desired result probable or inevitable.
Just imagine a world in which just one or two assumptions did not exist. For example, how about a world without the fictions called "government"? Or how about a world with the fiction called "government", but in which this government did not mandate and support and ally-with the fiction called "corporation". Or how about a world in which virtually every child is brainwashed from birth to accept endless fictions like "government" and "corporation" and "authority" and "law" as... unquestionable facts of nature.
Yes... different inputs, different results.
Nonsense. You have Fascist anti-market central control dominating the US empire using the military. Capitalist experiment? You think you have capitalism in the USA? Nothing of the sort is true.
lol, and of course you don't have the catholic religion in the Vatican !
It is corrupted capitalism, true, but it is capitalism that has become corrupted, not something else that has become corrupted.
The capitalist ideologues like to say that socialism and communism not only have never worked, but never could work, because they will always become corrupted. Perhaps the same is true of capitalism.
It is no good denying that America (and the entire western world) are not capitalist in spirit, when they clearly are, even if their practice of capitalism is less than reference-model perfect. The military empire of the West serves to create markets for the capitalists the world over, and provide security for global capitalist trade. This is indisputable. Whether or not that is what is intended, it is clearly what has been happening for 400 years.
The essential characteristic of capitalism is private ownership of capital, and strong protections for that private ownership. In America, the top 5% hold 90% of the financial wealth, and this is not viewed as an aberration. There is simply no other system besides capitalism that could allow this to happen. There is certainly no other worldview that would have the poor defending the right of oligarchs to continue to amass wealth unto themselves without providing any social utility.
"It is corrupted capitalism, true"
UNTRUE.
It is REMOVAL of capitalism since no later than 1913. You can't corrupt capitalism by removing it entirely. It's gone. 0% alive. Not present whatsoever.
"The essential characteristic of capitalism is private ownership of capital, and strong protections for that private ownership."
Think hard about the words and their meanings.
America has zero protection for private ownership.
It has 100% protection for GOVERNMENT ownership and non-private, non-individual CORPORATE ownership.
Next book, Murders Of The banksters that knew too much.
Unfortunately, almost no one has actually read Das Kapital.
It's more about equitable value based on the labor put into a product. It's not about everyone being equal as often bandied around. It's about being justly compensated for the work you do. It's a painful read because it deals as much with product pricing as equitable value. It is very dry, and tedious discussion about the relationship between raw materials and finished products.
Of course, rather than read the book, it's much easier to create distortions.
Gee, who on earth would benefit by creating distortions?
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Wallerstein/Presentation/W...
World-Systems Analysis
We do what we do "FOR THE CHILDREN"................HACK! HAIRBALL!
Hahahahaha......like the 0.5% buy their reading material from Amazon.
Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto as a younger man. This was his solution to the problems he saw around him at the time as is best described as a Christian Heresy. However he was spot on with Das Kapital identifying the flaws of capitalism and for this he deserves credit. However does it all just boil down to Greed and the need to stop it running away with itself.
"The beauty about Capitalism is that wealth is indeed concentrated BUT always moves freely, not controlled like communism."
Yeah, right. :D:D:D:D
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/21/americas-oligarchy-not-d...
Karl Marx' "Kritik des Kapitalismus" is an ANALYSIS of capitalism, not a critique. "Kritik" is an old-fashioned word for analysis.
Which is very much needed in these times.
Andrew Carnegie was able to dispose of a great personal fortune, due to income in-equality. He buildt libraries all across the United States. I was educated in one of them. Public Libraries. If the Government had got its hands on this money, every penny of it would have been wasted in zero-productive stupidity and friction. Think about it.
In fact Karl Marx predicted what is happening right now: In old times of Manchester Capitalism the entrepreneur was the capitalist - he OWNED and RUN his business.
What Marx predicted was that the financial sphere gets seperated from the actual entrepreneurial sphere: More and more capital is provided TO the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur becomes more of a manager. And capital itself - without entrepreneurial effort - is generating a profit for the financial sphere.
Look around who is generating the most wealth: the wealthy. How do they do it? By skimming profits off all the others. By buying existing houses and rising rents e.g.
Marx said that when this gets more and more obvious to the population the people will eventually recognise the true nature of capitalism which means: using labour to produce goods which are worth more than the labour that is put into them, thus generating a (workless) profit for: the capitalistic sphere.
In recognising this the people will re-organise capitalism to make it more equal, meaning: giving the labour side it's true share of the produced wealth.
Such a situation is impossible long-term: workers who aren't compensated enough do less work or none. Maybe they do a bad job, maybe they sabotage plans or production, maybe they work slower, maybe they leave. They enter believing they are not slaves so they will either not bow down, or they will but then a slave, a true slave, has only one reason to work hard: torture. Refuse to put that in place and the worker-slave will not comply completely and production falls off, profits fall off & the value of the product itself drops in accordance to any drop in the value of the worker/labour.
Nah, because government comes in and protects the interests of capitalists, as we have seen in America. You have guys like Reagan that gut organized labor, making people powerless. And then you have global trade, which substitutes the poor and disenfranchised in some third-world country for the poor and disenfranchised in America, so that you can't even get a job, let alone negotiate your wage or working conditions.
It will absolutely work. By 2050, we will have permanent double-digit unemployment in the U.S.; they won't count it that way though, they will stop counting people that don't even look for work because there are no jobs worth having. And to compensate, the size of the entitlement programs will rise to 12 or 15% of GDP. This won't hurt the profits of the oligarchs one bit.
It can continue forever. It will continue until the system is upended by revolution, probably violent revolution, because the politicians are just another labor pool for the capitalist kleptocrats. There is no limit to the severity of wealth inequality. You will have a smaller and smaller global elite owning a larger and larger share of all property and all wealth, until they literally own and control everything on the planet, and manage it through a few supermassive corporations. And as long as they continue to trickle a little milk to the proles, such a system could perpetuate itself forever. Beyond some point, the people will not even hope for equality any longer.
No, in America we see the opposite: those few who are capitalists are destroyed by government so the Facist corporate anti-capitalists in the Military Industrial Complex, in the Banking & Insurance "industry", in the business of the POLICE-STATE are protected. Everyone else is expendable and is stomped on regularly. You seem to be using the opposite definition of capitalism as I am.
A capitalist by definition does not need nor seek protection from government. Will not have it.
"And then you have global trade, which substitutes the poor and disenfranchised in some third-world country"
Which is all controlled by governments at all times, not businesses. 100% anti-capitalist. That which is capitalist doesn't seek government trade agreements, they just go meet & trade without a central-controller international agreement.
Those who are kleptocrats are instantly, immediately and always 100% anti-capitalist. You don't even know the meaning of the words you use!
Capitalists are outside of government. Kleptocrats inside government.
Capitalists OWN the means of production. Kleptocrats find owners, then rob them.
President Nixon supposedly summed up in with Milton Friedman’s immortal words, “We’re all Keynesians now.”
Secretary Paulsen supposedly summed up with Ben Bernanke's immortal words, "We're all Jews now".
Having heard about this book everywhere for a few days now, I have had differing opinions on whether its apparently far reaching message is on the balance good or bad, since at least this book is conveying to the mainstream audience that we have a serious problem with excessive asset accumulation in the highest echelon of wealth in society.
I'm not in general agreement with the remedies this book offers on how to fix things, without having read it and on the basis of all of the second hand reviews I've read, but if this book generates awareness of things not being as "peachy" as most of the media and government would like everyone to believe, maybe it will at least provoke people into doing some more independent research into things and push people past the official propaganda they may be fed to explain the grounds of our next inevitable financial collapse.
Socialism, in general begins with the flawed assumption that inequality is bad for society. It is quite healthy.
Sure is... as long as the inequality is for the natural and appropriate (causal) reasons! If someone is better off because they are more productive, that is very positive, healthy, benevolent feedback. If someone is better off because they are an effective predator, that is very negative, unhealthy, malevolent feedback.
In other words, how inequality occurs matters very much.
It's not just the absolute or even relative inequality, it's how that inequality is maintained & established. The methods matter as much as the results & perhaps moreso. Lots of people who are poor lament what they don't have but manage to live, thinking it's normal, not thinking they must be masters of the universe, mafia kings, super-soldiers, to escape it. Just a few believe the opposite & that same few in any circumstance will want more, even if they have it all, and will kill anyone, everyone, enslave nations, races, an entire gender, just to have it.
Socialism isn't communism / Marxism. Marxists want inequality wiped out in a way that's so counter to nature it can't be done & the attempt will destroy everything. Socialists merely work together, collective ownership of the means of production. Equality is not actually baked in the cake but the average socialist would happily see inequality diminish from the added benefit of collective productivity. Corporations seek the same benefit which is why they get so big, load up departments, layers of management & then cut what they don't need later. It's the socialists you shouldn't count on for cutting squat. A market-driven corporation is very responsive whereas a socialist worker co-op may not have the edge needed to be so adaptive.
Uh, no it isn't. Severe inequality is always a cause of social unrest. Especially persistent, worsening inequality of the kind we see in America.
The natural state of humanity is cooperation and sharing. Humans have not yet learned to regain our natural cooperation since the advent of agriculture, which caused the advent of private property and money, some 10,000 years ago. But remember that ten thousand years is only five percent of the history of anatomically modern humans.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Let's just ignore the role predators-DBA-government plays in enforcing the will of NON-productive business leaders. Though I hate these [now-loaded] terms, I suppose some might say "self-interest" is desire satisfied by actually producing and trading goods, while "greed" is desire satisfied by getting unearned, unproduced wealth via fiat, fraud, fiction, fantasy... and most importantly, "officially rigged systems" created by lobbying and political contributions.
And thus predators-DBA-corporations ally with predators-DBA-government to fleece individual producers and producers-DBA-corporations.
The only solution is to connect cause and effect. He who causes harm and destruction, suffers the consequences (the harm and destruction). He who causes new goods and goodies to exist, suffers the consequences (goods and goodies to enjoy and trade).
ALL the rest is pure propaganda for one position or other, but fundamentally irrelevant. What is relevant is "consequences shifting" (where predators shift goods and goodies created by producers onto themselves, and shift the harm and destruction that is the natural and unavoidable consequences of their actions onto producers). Today, "consequences shifting" is far and away the dominant modus-operandi.
The solution is the opposite, no consequences-shifting... let everyone enjoy/bare/suffer the consequences of their own actions.
All the fancy abstractions are completely irrelevant and beside the point (and usually flat out wrong). All that matters is... cause and effect as applied to human action. Who enjoys/bares/suffers the consequences of human actions? He who took the action... or someone else? Are consequences shifted... or not?
Learn to identify fundamentals and most seemingly complex, confused topics become quite simple. Of course, few humans want to face the simple truth. Jack Nicholson was absolutely correct... for the majority of mankind. Of course, the majority of mankind was thoroughly programmed to be that way by parents, teachers and media. Humans aren't born defective, they're made that way.
The only realistic and credible critique to capitalism is Shumpeter's: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism,_Socialism_and_Democracy#Part_II...
he anticipated all of this
The remarkable thing concerning this media buzz about Piketty is that this guy is going CONTRARY to all the mainstream economists today who think that economic recovery is just around the corner and the US ship is on a new plateau of "undervalued" stocks, like Apple, and that the Big Data model in the pipeline will change the Universe to a new paradigm like no other.
If 67 economists today feel that way about the Economy and find the rise of WS assets the "normal thing" irrespective of P/E ratios, now alarmingly close to 2000 tech bubble, then we have a situation like the one that developed during the roaring twenties.
Just to remind you, then, an obscure Economist : JM Keynes wrote a treatise that would make history--a bit like the Piketty R>G meme of today-- Where he wrote in a seminal analysis (no pun intended) : "The Economic Consequences of the Treaty of Versailles", why the Franco-Brit peace treaty clauses would ruin the German Economy and put the Gold standard and the Pound's preeminence under strain.
Of course, History proved him right beyond his wildest dreams and exorbitant hubris fed the US-WS gravy train to 1929 crash-- like current times-- in the USA and reparation payment for WW1 to Weimar collapse and Mussolini rise in Europe.
Awesome prescience on Keynes's part and it made him the economist of the century.
I know the rush to "bastardise" the Piketty treatise has already begun in the media.
But it will be interesting to see if the coming events of our age make Piketty into a second J M Keynes.
(You may have noticed to what degree JM Keynes is bastardised here, especially on ZH, in spite of his contribution to economics).
Some people, if they be not paid shills, be delusional idiots, who have no eyes to see and no brain to think; especially as history has written the tale in indelible ink for posterity.