The new left economists are as wrong as the old ones
I have been highly critical of Krugman and Piketty. Here is a recent article that agrees with me.
Read more for the specific criticisms.Vast quantities of corporate wealth are hidden offshore by companies and could easily fund a hugely expanded state sector if only the money could be brought back into the system. Innovation does not mainly come from entrepreneurs, but from the government, and the more of that we have the richer we will all be.
In the wake of the French economist Thomas Piketty’s best-seller ‘Capital In The Twenty-First Century’, the Left has a couple of new economic gurus.
Gabriel Zucman is getting a lot of coverage for ‘The Hidden Wealth of Nations’, which focuses on tax havens, while Mariana Mazzucato has built up a big following for ‘The Entrepreneurial State’, which argues that government has played a big role in creating innovation.
In their own ways, both are interesting and original works. The trouble is, both feed two of the Left’s favourite myths – that there is lots of free money hidden somewhere, that can be taxed with ease, and that the state somehow makes us wealthier. And yet neither stands up to any serious scrutiny, any more than Piketty or any of the older economic theorists of the Left ever did.