I love socialism. But this title should’ve been: Time for Band-aid Solutions to Late Stage Capitalism That Don’t Question Capitalism That Much.

Too long? 😆 Still, that wasn’t my problem with this book.

Piketty is a great economic stats guy. And the extent to which his more famous book (Capital in the 21st Century) is about stats-y stuff = the extent to which that book is great.

But he’s a piss-poor political theorist. And the extent to which this book (a collection of LeMonde articles) was political theory = the extent to which this book was effing terrible. Make sense?

Moreover, this 1⭐️ was especially deserved because Piketty seems all too complicit in the capitalist ideology he claims to critique.

He’s right: the way wealth and corporate taxes are currently structured has resulted in a massive wealth transfer—from regular people TO the wealthiest citizens.

But, he genuinely thinks wealthy political elites are going to increase their and their friends’ taxes. No revolutions, no strongly worded letters; he thinks he can explain to political leaders why, mathematically, their economic policies are (silly them!) only benefiting themselves when he’s sure they want economic policies that benefit everyone.

He advises Hillary Clinton make a speech communicating her “genuine desire” to tax her friends. And he thinks Macron and Trump “are probably sincere” in their belief that trickle down economics help regular people…

C’mon! This book was maddening—or at least, it should have been. Because what made it all even worse was the pacifying tone to every single chapter. The only thing this man hates more than a poorly conceived corporate tax system is public unrest.

But my dude! You can’t argue that our current economic system is most similar to the Ancien Régime (you know, the “let them eat cake” peeps) and then explicitly argue against protests.

Directly into the trash 🗑️