Capitalist = smart people Communism = stupid people This guy is a charmer. Also, why do you need to state your bias, dude? Could it be that this is just makeup on your opinion? Asking for a friend.
I just can’t get over how the man who has done zero analysis on how his data skews so immensely white, male and landowner, is actually going to spend time analyzing the economy of buying and selling human beings.
Omg this shit is so racist. He has zero shame. The colonialism is strong with this one.
But let’s do methodology (because the rest is just disgusting): he has chosen France, Great Britain, Germany and the US over the past 300 years as the countries he will extrapolate from. He has just talked about how France and Great Britain “owned” large parts of Africa and Asia. Apparently the German colonial “assets” were insignificant. But they were good at tech or something. Anyhoo, these very average countries, during this very “normal” time of colonial expansion, slavery and plundering of natural resources (my words, he doesn’t actually mention it at all), are of course the perfect candidates to extrapolate from to make predictions about similar countries in this century such as… Brazil, India and China? Sounds reasonable. Carry on.
I just can’t about how much he seems to crave colonialism. And seems to blame the countries who were/are victims of it. And “counties owned by other countries” is just a disgusting phrase.
I’m failing hard on this one, this shit is so extremely racist. And he doesn’t even discuss it in context as he goes along. It’s like what happened was Fine Actually. https://social.vivaldi.net/@Patricia/112682532791671773
Guy who did not spend one sentence on the bias of his data, or how colonialism is the direct cause of poverty and political instability all over the world, just spent a good chunk of time on compound interest.
This is the problem with having two variables, mr Economist, you lose absolutely all relevant context. But the wonderful graphs you can make more than make up for it.
Ah yes, the amazing growth of post WWII Europe when we got the Marshall Plan money so we could rebuild after having it bombed and burned for five years. You’re gonna love post-war Ukraine, Mr Piketty. 🙃 So Much Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
People tell me this guy is a leftist-economist… and I’m here in chapter 2 getting strong “replacement theory” vibes. I don’t really get where folks are getting that impression. But I’m only in chapter 2.
Americans, how did the abolition of slavery impact population numbers? Did the US count enslaved people in the census before the abolition of slavery? He is basically saying that the population of the US increased dramatically between 1780-1910. But I am wondering who they were counting in 1780.
You know when you listen to someone and you go “Nah, I’m sure he didn’t mean that” that’s me constantly in this book.
Currently he’s at:
If folks have lots of children, inherited wealth is insignificant because you have to divide it over all the children (note he does not discuss class differences in number of children here, which was an issue in Norway and I’m sure is everywhere tbh). Also he doesn’t describe inheritance processes where everything or large parts are passed to only one child (oftest the eldest MALE child)
I think this is where he wants to stop. Because the next bit breaks his plan:
He mentions that population growth can also be through immigration, but he doesn’t discuss how that completely ruins this breakup of inheritance.
And then he gets hand wavy about immigration being bad because of conflicts between these groups.
You see where I’m getting iffy here?
He says that inherited wealth is not an issue in the US because of population growth. But then he says that the population growth in the US was because of immigration… you see my problem?
The math ain’t mathing. And I don’t know if it is racism or having two variables or both.
The entire chapter 2 seems to be about reducing the “growth” of a country to a single percentage number per year and then saying that “y’all compound interest makes small numbers big”