I just got word that Thomas Piketty will be speaking at Harvard Bookstore tomorrow. I vaguely recalled seeing his name in a headline I had seen.

Naked Capitalism has the post Philip Pilkington: Misdirection – Galbraith on Thomas Piketty’s New Book on Capital.

Galbraith also makes clear that Piketty’s policy proposals — mostly dealing with higher taxes on the rich — are probably not fit for purpose in a globalised, financialised economy. Rather Galbraith asks us to consider alternative approaches.

If the heart of the problem is a rate of return on private assets that is too high, the better solution is to lower that rate of return. How? Raise minimum wages! That lowers the return on capital that relies on low-wage labor. Support unions! Tax corporate profits and personal capital gains, including dividends! Lower the interest rate actually required of businesses! Do this by creating new public and cooperative lenders to replace today’s zombie mega-banks. And if one is concerned about the monopoly rights granted by law and trade agreements to Big Pharma, Big Media, lawyers, doctors, and so forth, there is always the possibility (as Dean Baker reminds us) of introducing more competition.

As mentioned in the article, Galbraith’s critique Kapital for the Twenty-First Century? is in Dissent Magazine. There is an excellent discussion on the difference between productive wealth creation and non-productive wealth creation.  The taxes that would fix the problem with the non-productive wealth creation might hinder the productive wealth creation. Hence, Galbraith’s suggestions above.  Worth the price of admission of reading his critique.

Perhaps it would be worth it to go to the talk and throw this criticism at him.