Donald J. Boudreaux On Piketty

See Pikettymania.  Excerpts:

"Start with Piketty's pithy refrain: r > g , where r is the rate of return on capital and g is the rate of economic growth. Piketty insists that the rate of return on capital will, year in and year out, exceed the rate of economic growth. The result is that (unless government intervenes) those who own capital will steadily grow richer than those who own only their own labor.

How, though, do the returns on capital grow so regularly and rapidly? You'd think the book would explain this central proposition. Yet Piketty offers no such explanation beyond saying that capital grows “by itself.”

"The entire tenor of Piketty's volume suggests that he thinks capital reproduces itself, both from the perspective of its individual owners and from the perspective of society at large.

The creativity and fortitude of entrepreneurs, the skillful risk-taking by investors and the insight and effort of managers are all strangely absent throughout Piketty's performance. These very fonts of modern prosperity are at best assumed to play uninterestingly routine and unseen roles backstage. Onstage, capital — the stuff that is in fact created and skillfully steered by flesh-and-blood entrepreneurs, investors and managers — appears to grow spontaneously, without human involvement."