Capital Is Back, but It's Not a Capital Phenomenon

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Toma: The rate of growth of the top one % is growing, i say, it's not the same people. And he still says, oh, but this can't go on forever. It's going to eventually that,. you know, even if people are continually leap frogging each other, i think he views it as somehow alarming. But actually he's quite well aware, and his data from both the united states and france quite clearly show that the increasing inequality is not a capital phenomenon. It's a labor income phenomenon.

Daron Acemoglu, the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his new paper co-authored with James Robinson, "The Rise and Fall of General Laws of Capitalism," a critique of Thomas Piketty, Karl Marx, and other thinkers who have tried to explain patterns of data as inevitable "laws" without regard to institutions. Acemoglu and Roberts also discuss labor unions, labor markets, and inequality.