Thomas Piketty

Two new books on economic history and theory suggest the limits of the Austrian school—and the vital importance of progressive taxation.

A graduate student is giving French economist Thomas Piketty a run for his money while re-imagining the worst culprit of inequality.

California is the home to more super rich than anywhere else in the country—and it also exhibits the highest poverty rate in the nation.

Just as you suspected, there’s a reason inequality is structural and self-perpetuating. But you might be shocked by just how few of the most well-off individuals are able to out-earn the generation before them. It isn’t the one percent we should be focusing on, but the 0.1 percent.

Embracing a system based on maximizing the returns to private owners of capital is a mistake for the great majority of working people.

Patrimonial capitalism—and the landed or urban gentry living off of inherited wealth—was dealt a mortal blow by the Great Depression and World Wars. But it's making a comeback, and the only way to stop it might be a worldwide tax on capital.