Piketty's laws and logic

Abstract

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a valuable contribution to the history of wealth and income distribution. But Piketty’s theory about wealth and income distribution as encapsulate in his laws of capitalism leaves much to be desired. One of the laws is devoid of substance, the others are convoluted reformulations of relationships that have been known for a long time. And neither of them have any bearing on the distribution of wealth and income. Also, Piketty’s use of logical terms is at times obscure, as when he talks about “contradictions” in capitalism. Thus, Piketty’s laws are irrelevant for his predictions, and his logical vocabulary is deceptive.