Mike Konczal recently reviewed the newest trendy book in economics, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, for the Boston Review. Konczal succeeded the impossible task of not mentioning the names of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels once. It is remarkable, because he goes in detail about the 1790 work of Friederich Eden. The latter is perhaps just slightly better known to the world than this author.
Also remarkable is that unlike Mike Konczal who writes for the left leaning magazine –Nation-, John B. Judis, who writes for the center-tight The New Republic, and who also reviewed Piketty’s new book, managed to point out that:
I admire Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I’ve even read it. But I fear that, in his interview with Isaac Chotiner, Piketty was putting on his American readers when he disclaims any interest in Marx’s ideas. He says he “never managed to read” Marx and that Marx’s ideas were “not very influential” on his work and that his book, unlike Marx’s Capital, is “about the history of capital” and that Marx’s Capital contains “no data.” These statements are uniformly false, and Piketty must know it.
Now, that is what TPV calls controversy or at least an interesting point. The only way Piketty‘s public rejection of Marx can be explained is by going into pure guessing:
- Piketty‘s research assistants did not know how to read and they only looked at pictures of shaved men and women.
- Piketty states that he never read Marx because his publisher told him to stay away from Marxist talk because Americans are more afraid of Marxism than they are of the Klan (and I mean KKK).
- Or perhaps, Piketty isn’t the real writer, but only the spokesperson for the real writer of “his” book.
- Or even more interesting, Piketty does not want his book to be seen as derivative or a mere contributor to a long tradition of Marxist thought.
Why not, perhaps Piketty wants to start something that has never been done. And here is how Mike Konczal becomes helpful, because Konczal suggested that Piketty wants to start an inventory of the rich.
Picketty would like to create a database with the pictures and Skype addresses of all individuals who make more than 10 million US dollars a year. Then, Picketty would invite us, the lumpen proletariat, to Skype these rich people daily and chat with them about 5 minutes. Then, we get back to Picketty with our impressions:
- Are these rich people interesting or are they boring?
- What do they do in the morning?
- How much do they spend on manicure? What about pedicure?
- Do they still wash their private parts or just fan them?
Of course, the data would then be coded and interpreted and the results would be published in another book, whose review TPV can’t wait to read.
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POLITCAL MORES
Mike Konczal Has Not Heard of Karl Marx. But Picketty Has. They Used to Be Neighbors.
