[Peace-discuss] Next Piketty reading group - Wednesday 1 July, 6pm

[C. G. Estabrook]

Last Wednesday’s meeting of the AWARE group reading “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” considered chapter 8, “Two Worlds” ( = the 1% and the next 9%, whom he contends are quite different).  

At the next meeting we’ll talk about chapter 9, “Inequality of Labor Income.” 

All income can be divided into income from labor (wages, roughly) and income form capital (rent, very roughly). They are related, but they change over time; Piketty considers the former in chapter 9 and the latter in chapter 10.

On-line access to the book: <http://resistir.info/livros/piketty_capital_in_the_21_century_2014.pdf>.

Members and friends of AWARE are invited to join the group at 6pm on Wednesday 1 July at 5 Litchfield Lane in Champaign (regardless of whether they’ve read the text).

—CGE  

===========================ADDENDUM==============================

The British paper The Financial Times has an informal (and amusing) interview with Piketty in today’s edition: 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7ca6cfc2-1b39-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7ca6cfc2-1b39-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html>

'...It is ironic, he says, that austerity is imposed on debt-laden Greece by two countries, Germany and France, that benefited from debt cancellations after the second world war: a move that allowed 30 years of growth on the continent. “There’s some sort of collective amnesia,” he says, getting more animated. “It is this cancellation that allowed them to invest in education, innovation and public infrastructure. And now, those same countries tell Greece that it will have to pay 4 per cent of its GDP for 30 years. Who can believe this?” The role of the International Monetary Fund in the Greek talks is a “catastrophe,” he sighs.

'The eurozone crisis, according to Piketty, reflects a deeply flawed governance, where only two leaders decide who calls for “a democratic overhaul of European institutions . . .  It’s purely because we are unable to organise ourselves politically that we’re in deep shit,” he says. “From a macroeconomic point of view, Greece is insignificant.”

'The eurozone is following the example of the UK, he says, which spent the 19th century paying down its huge debt pile inherited from the Napoleonic wars with budget surpluses. It worked — but, he continues, it took 100 years, during which the UK neglected its education system...'

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