Thomas Piketty's Crumbs?
What progress since 1910? Putting together section 1 of the new book ...
My new book is tentatively titled:
The Value of Nothing - What Economics Can Tell You about the Meaning of Life
and the heart of the book is reflection on the material progress made since 1910. Why 1910, you may ask, and I would answer that this entire project was inspired by a phrase in the French economist Thomas Piketty’s famous book, Capital. He wrote,
“The poorer half of the population are as poor today as they were in the past, with barely 5 percent of total wealth in 2010, just as in 1910. Basically, all the middle class managed to get its hands on was a few crumbs.”
Piketty’s claim is unbelievable, flying against what we can see with our own eyes. Twenty percent of Americans couldn’t read, and only six percent graduates from high school, in 1910.
The material crumbs of progress include air conditioning, indoor plumbing, television, and computers. He and others obsessed with the uneven distribution of wealth are willfully blind to the valuable things that have been invented, improved and made more affordable by the invisible hand of competitive markets.
But the Inequality warriors are also blind to the value of things that money can’t buy.
How does an economist put a price tag on fresh air or a pristine mountain lake? Why is the revolution in human health of no value to Thomas Piketty? What about the progress in equal rights for minorities since 1965 or profound improvement in civil rights for women? These things matter. They deserve to be valued.
Which is what brings us to my question for you today:
What things matter the most to you?