Thomas Piketty visits HLS to debate his book 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'

On Friday March 6 at Harvard Law School, renowned economist Thomas Piketty, professor of Economics, EHESS and at the Paris School of Economics, visited the law school to debate his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century with several Harvard faculty, including: Sven Beckert Laird Bell Professor of American History, Harvard University; Christine Desan, Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; David Kennedy, Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; and Stephen Marglin, Walter S. Barker Chair in the Department of Economics, Harvard University.

[DeOmnibusDubitandum]

11:40 for professional reasons, so moving to see credit, applause, and visibility so generously given to the translator of the book. A rare occurrence for translators indeed!

[dgeellis]

To critique Stephen's comments: @1:27:26. "Doesn't say anything about what's causing what." It does actually. For starters, tax policy, 1940-1980 when top tax rates were around 90-60%. 1:28:43 "Leave the poor out of this, they don't save." His argument in that graph leaves out at least 80% of the population.

[nthperson]

It is worth adding to this discussion that a serious analytical problem is created by the failure on the part of most economists (and even other social scientists) to distinguish between gains associated with financial transactions and gains associated with actual capital goods. And, of course, in the real world capital goods do not appreciate in value; they depreciate down to scrap value, even though during the life of a building or machine or even a software program the asset requires ongoing infusion of labor and new capital goods just to maintain functional utility.

What are the consequences of this failure? The easiest to identify is the declaration of gains on the sale of assets as "capital gains" and, on the theory that such gains should be encouraged, the rate of taxation imposed on such gains is kept lower (and often far lower) than income earned by producing goods and services.

[jasonvignochi]

I have no idea what I just watched (for the most part) but I am damn interested in figuring it out.  Thank you for the video.

[AraMacaraig]

His book inspire his students in tertiary level..He shows how he presents his book in a polite and educational manner..Its not easy for me to catch his accent fluently but i tried my best
.To explain further and foremost he depend much his book like others say "the battle of the accent".Congratulayions Prof Piketty

See u lately...❤❤❤

[rosalynadekunle]

This video helped to broaden my understanding of capitalism, the wealthy, inequality in the US and the world

[Mac]

At last someone who knows what's wrong with the advanced and developing economies. Focus to be more on people at the bottom of the workforce and their disparities.

[altleftorg]

На канале в моем профиле смотрите свежий ролик о Томасе Пикетти и его идеях⚡ В ролике проведены сравнения некоторых идей Маркса и Пикетти.

[jaycannon]

supply and demand models only are meaningful in a free market . the stock market is a 1 percent market that excludes stakehokders of the society and is not a sustainable economic arrangement.

[sonotover]

It's often true that super wealthy people live in more misery than the average middle class worker. People rely on them for an income and to support their families. They often can't just take time off and do whatever they want, their customers expectations are ever growing, the market demand is ever more competitive, the legal system is ever present, the tax system and laws are constantly putting pressure on their sales model and profit margins. On top of this, they still get divorced, they still get stalked and harassed, they still get death threats and hate mail, they still get people quitting, or stealing trade secrets etc. They still have china doing everything they can to copy and produce the same product for cheaper with slave labour.

[ArupGuhaideasanctuary]

an interesting perspective on inequality is that it is primarily due to skill shortage rather than inter-generational concentration of wealth

[苏源禹]

War, war never change.
只有战争和革命么？真是灰暗的未来呢。

[javlonjuraev]

The commentators are so off-point - there is an impression that they didn't understand the book.

[sonotover]

What is inherently bad about income inequality or percentage of people in a middle class?
It's like remarking about how many men currently qualified to compete in the Mr. Olympia contest and saying this is bad that such a small number of men were able to create such a huge gap between the average physique and theirs.

[sonotover]

This guy wants to impose laws to fix something but hasn't proved why it's wrong to begin with.

[DipakBose-bqvv]

It is torture to listen to his French accent. It is worse than a Chinese speaking English.