The publication of ‘After Piketty:The Agenda for Economics and Inequality’ gives another opportunity for the Oxbridgers at The Economist to exercise their contempt of the Economic Apostate Piketty. Its not redolent of Oakshott’s contempt of anything resembling Social Democracy, but takes its cue from Cameron’s sneering, but always dull-witted expressions of contempt for Jeremy Corbyn: its about the one-upmanship of Social/Political Class.
The curious reader of The Economist doesn’t need to go far to find an even-handed review of Piketty’s book. Here is the first installment of R. A.’s impressive, and what seems to me a fair assessment of ‘Capital’, and its subsequent installments:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/book-clubs
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/book-clubs
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/book-clubs-0
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/book-clubs-1
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/book-clubs-2
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/book-clubs
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/book-clubs-0
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/book-clubs-1
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/04/book-clubs-2
The writer of ‘Free Exchange’ ignores what is politically inconvenient: this essay by Marshall Steinbaum, one of the editors of ‘After Piketty’, on May 12, 2017 in the Boston Review.
The time lag between the Economist essay of May 18, and the publication of Steinbaum’s essay on May 12, leaves little doubt that the reason for its absence from The Economist essay is ideological. The anonymous writer of ‘Free Exchange’ should have followed R.A.’s example, but the defense of an utterly collapsed Neo-Liberalism, and its successor Austerity, and the dismal economic/political present is of primary importance.
Almost Marx