Luigi Zingales vs Tom Piketty.
I have already recommended Capitalisn't, an English-language podcast about how capitalism works, how it doesn't work, and what can be done to make it work better. Hosted by Vanity Fair editor Bethany McLean and a professor at the G.I. Booth University of Chicago Luigi Zingales. In addition to discussing certain pressing issues, the podcast hosts also invite guests. One of the most recent was Tom Piketty, who recently released the book A Brief History of Equality. The ideas in this book were the subject of controversy in the latest edition of the podcast (listen[1], read[2]).
What got me hooked.
First, Bethany asks Tom:
Your book is essentially optimistic. You point out how much more equal the world has become, how life expectancy and well-being in general have risen dramatically. Here's a devil's advocate question for you: was this made possible by the same forces that increased inequality? And if reducing inequality also means lowering the overall standard of living, would you choose to reduce inequality? What's more important?
Tom answers:
No, of course not. Of course, I would never choose that option.
Further, Piketty retells his book for a long and not very interesting time, along the way formulating (and very implicitly) the framework of a new economic system. In short, we are talking about economic democracy, the deployment of cooperatives with the simultaneous abolition of such forms of organization of firms, where management and shareholders do not want to allow workers to manage the company. Along the way, Piketty talks about the decommodification and decommercialization of the economy on the basis that a number of areas are already partially decommodified and decommercialized - medicine and healthcare as an example. Ideally, this process should be continued. and business will keep cafes, restaurants and housing. The reason is that here the preferences of people are very different, and a business can work well with this.
But the really interesting stuff happens when Zingales stops Piketty's speech and explicitly tells him that what you're talking about is that you, Toma, are actually looking for an economic system that is more egalitarian, but I have there are doubts - and this worries me - that the rules you describe are compatible with freedom. And that in reality, to achieve such a society, as you describe, is unlikely to come out, unless you turn away from democracy.
Piketty replies that if management does not want to give equal rights to workers, then they will. Yes, there are those who want to keep power for themselves, here are the aristocrats in France at the end of the 19th century ...
The following is the complete dialogue.
Z: No, but sorry. The aristocrats in France did not compete with each other. In fact, they competed with the aristocrats of other countries. But companies compete with each other in the markets. So if there is a more efficient organizational form...
P: Well, this is a question that is suitable for democratic discussion. That's all. That's all I'm saying. So, of course, I think that I am much more democratic than you, because I want to have really equal participation in the democratic process through political funding, media funding, etc.
Z: But you restrict people from having that [right]. You don't allow people to create companies other than the ones you want. This is not freedom.
Grigory Bazhenov 2022-10-30
