Piketty’s data
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Stephanie Flanders take on the bookhttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/17/capital-twenty-first-century-thomas-piketty-review
Quote:Like Miliband, Piketty sees a clear difference between the wealth creators and the asset strippers – between the fat cat "rentier" capital that devours the future and the more socially useful capital of the entrepreneur. But his own broad definition of capital doesn't really help us draw that kind of distinction. It's all thrown in together, along with all of our houses, and everything else with a financial value that can be bought or sold. That's a pity because if there's one thing that policymakers around the world are looking for it's a way to channel a bit more money into productive investment – and a bit less into house prices and stocks and shares.Industrial barons gooooooood…lords of finance baaaaaaaaaaaad
To get a handle on the way this book has been discussd on the radio, this podcast is interesting. Having the BBC discussing rising inequality and capitalism itself is a novelty. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moreorless/moreorless_20140602-1200a.mp3
Piketty, pp.443-4, wrote:No one denies that it is important for society to have entrepreneurs…. Entrepreneurs thus tend to turn into rentiers….[but we must act] while preserving entrepreneurial dynamism…Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.What bit does ‘professor’ Piketty not understand about this?
Quote:sociopath:a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociopathAnd a ‘rentier’ is just a successful sociopath.So, to translate for the non-communist, pro-Piketty crowd:Piketty wants dynamic sociopaths, who are ‘important for society’, even though he realises that they succeed in their sociopathy, and so he proposes… ‘tax’?Perhaps Piketty, as a 60s judge, would have proposed that Hindley and Brady should have been punished by putting them in a higher tax band?The more I’ve read of this book, the more laughable it becomes.Whilst the people reading it give the term ‘entrepreneur’ any validity whatsoever, they are using the wrong ideology to understand Piketty.We need a translation from ‘bourgeois’ to ‘proletarian’, never mind from ‘French’ to ‘English’.
DJP wrote:LBird wrote:Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.What a profound and nuanced analysis.
Yeah, perhaps too profound for both Piketty and you?Wake up.
I have mellowed.If ALB, YMS and DJP say we can cherry-pick from the book to support our arguments and not suffer being tarnished by association with Piketty's or his advocates' reform proposals then so be it. I await the outcome and hope to witness the fruits.Even i have occasionally resorted to the current Pope Francis' cautionary sermons against particular expressions of capitalism to bolster our case. So why not use Piketty as supporting evidence. Wht not name-drop when the occasion is appropriate. If the Devil has the best tunes, i'm happy to hum along …as long as they are used effectively to show the present anti-social nature of any type of capitalist, regardless of any past progressive historical role they may have once had.
Anyon got a kindle copy?
LBird wrote:DJP wrote:LBird wrote:Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.What a profound and nuanced analysis.
Yeah, perhaps too profound for both Piketty and you?Wake up.
This may be of interest to the pair of you. It also relevant to a brief exchange i had with StuartW on the thread http://www.sott.net/article/268449-Empathic-people-are-natural-targets-for-sociopaths-protect-yourself
alanjjohnstone wrote:LBird wrote:DJP wrote:LBird wrote:Entrepreneurs are sociopaths.What a profound and nuanced analysis.
Yeah, perhaps too profound for both Piketty and you?Wake up.
This may be of interest to the pair of you.
My 'entrepreneurs are sociopaths' comment was merely intended to highlight the political ideology of Piketty, which, quite strangely, seems to be being ignored by comrades who have read his book. It's almost as if they seem to think that 'facts' exist outside of any theoretical framework, and thus that Piketty's book can be read 'apolitically' for its 'apolitical' facts.In reality, Piketty is an ideological bulwark of the bourgeoisie, and he's chosen his concepts and facts to suit his political framework (as we all inescapably do). Thus, his use of 'entrepreneur' (a bourgeois category) and his placing of this category in a positive light. I'm surprised that more comrades haven't picked up on Piketty's ideology, which is opposed to ours.But why DJP chose to make their uncomradely comment? I've no idea. Perhaps, and I'm trying to read between the lines of our earlier exchanges about 'science', DJP does believe in the sancitity of 'facts', and that an 'entrepreneur' is a 'fact' and that Piketty is merely objectively reporting the existence of 'the facts of life', ie. Capitalism, which we have to deal with.Being a Communist, I don't accept those so-called 'facts', and wish to change those 'facts' for our 'facts'. I think Piketty is a bullshitter, an academic who doesn't know his economic arse from his ideological elbow.Again, I find it quite surprising that so many comrades seem to take bourgeois academics at their word and at face value. I don't, I criticise them.Just a trouble-making Commie, eh? Bit like you, aj, you stirrer, you!
Does 'bourgeois' science need replacing with 'proletarian' science. If so then how can 'bourgeois' science be used against '19th century positivism'
Vin Maratty wrote:Does 'bourgeois' science need replacing with 'proletarian' science. If so then how can 'bourgeois' science be used against '19th century positivism'I'm afraid I can't go over all this again with you, Vin. You'll have to re-read the several (dozens of?) earlier threads, in which I've tried patiently to explain these issues to you and DJP.You weren't keen to engage then, so I presume you're not keen, now, either, so I won't waste the time of both of us. Just stick to 19th century positivist science, and its promoter within the Communist movement, Engels, and continue to argue for 'facts'. Then read Piketty's 'facts' and you'll know 'The Truth' about 'economics'.Simples, eh?It makes one wonder why we even bother with all that theoretical and ideological stuff in Capital. The first one, I mean.Then again, perhaps you and DJP don't.
We all know that Piketty is a reformist who wants to try and regulate capitalism to benefit the majority, which can't be done. But you've still not, L. Bird, given your opinion on the statistics produced by Piketty in chapter 10 on the 'Inequality of Capital Ownership'. Are they underestimates, overestimates, biased, complete fabrications or what? Are you saying that we can't use them to back up our case that capitalism is based on the ownership and control of the means of production by a tiny minority?
Young Master Smeet wrote:And the thing I want to know is: is Lbird a communist. I'm not sure on that point.He certainly refers to himself as one….. ad nauseam. Sort of begs the question – who's he trying to convince? Us….. or himself?
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