READ CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BY THOMAS PIKETTY...OR ELSE

Here is a short day for you with an entire book to read.

I have now reached the point in Piketty's book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" where he lays out his plans on how to deal with the problems of capital which he documents so well. I will likely find this the section with which I have the most disagreement. Piketty is not a Marxist, surely not a communist. I am. However, I can now say this without hesitation. Anyone who is at all concerned with capitalism, with inequality, and who has the time and the means to read this book - should. I don't really care if you do or you don't and I am not really interested in taking the time to write some long opinion piece, review, critique, but I can tell you that almost everything I have read which is critical of the book sounds as if it comes from people who never bothered to read it, are economist jealous of what Piketty has accomplished, or have a dogmatic ax to grind.  Further, and pointedly, I ask the critics, where is your data?  

Again, Piketty does not claim to be a Marxist. However, Marxists should surely read his book. This book provides real data, real evidence, real research which will be invaluable to those of us involved in the fight against capital for a long time to come.

Someone has made a PDF of the entire book and posted it here.  Far be it from me to comment on whether this should have been done or not.  Far be it from me to say you should go to that link and read it.  I am merely making notice of it for the simple purpose of saying someone did it.  Of course, we all know you should go out and buy the book. We all know that Mr. Piketty should reap the monetary benefits of his work.   However, there is nothing I can do about what has already been done.  It's already out there and it is the capitalist organization known as GOOGLE which is making it available.  For shame...

By the way, it is not necessary to tell me that Piketty is not Marx, is not a revolutionary, is trying to save Capital, is a social democrat, is not a communist, is not a Marxist, is a social democrat, etc. etc. etc. We all know all that. That isn't the point. Don't be scared, you won't get any cooties by touching it.