scholarly journals The mismeasure of Capital: a response to McCloskey

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Steven Pressman
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
First Century ◽  
Response Mechanism ◽  
Supply Response ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Straw Men

This paper is a response to Deirdre McCloskey's review essay, published recently in this journal, of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the twenty-first century. It argues that McCloskey has set up a number of straw men to attack. Furthermore, her three main arguments against Piketty are flawed. McCloskey wants human capital to be added to Piketty's measure of wealth; she contends that Piketty does not understand the supply-response mechanism; and she accuses Piketty of focusing on the wrong problem—inequality rather than poverty. This paper explains why these are all bad arguments.

Capital and Wealth in the Twenty-First Century

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 34-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Weil
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Capital Stock ◽  
Market Value ◽  
Capital Gains ◽  
First Century ◽  
Discount Rates ◽  
Income Ratio ◽  
Last 300 Years ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Thomas Piketty

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty uses the market value of tradable assets to measure both productive capital and wealth. As a measure of wealth this is problematic because it ignores the value of human capital and transfer wealth, which have grown enormously over the last 300 years. Thus the constancy of the wealth/income ratio as portrayed in his data is an illusion. Further, the types of wealth that he does not measure are more equally distributed than tradable assets. The approach also incorrectly identifies capital gains due to reduced discount rates as increases in the capital stock.

Automythology

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-56
Author(s):  
Jimmy Beaulieu
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Quebec City ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
International Level ◽  
Collective Work ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
The Future ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Set Up

A brief historical overview considers a number of factors that were not propitious for the development of a home-grown comics culture in Quebec (notwithstanding the popularity of a few noteworthy artists) including the impossibility of competing with cheaper American production, and the ambient conservatism that dominated much of the twentieth century. Beaulieu goes on to describe the shock and excitement of his discovery in the mid-1990s of an alternative comics scene (more active in Montreal than in Quebec City), and his own involvement in it from the beginning of the twenty-first century as an artist, publisher and teacher. He offers a firsthand account of the realities of negotiating the pressures of alternative comics publishing within the two structures that he set up: Mécanique Générale and the smaller and (still) more radical Colosse. There are pleasures: the ethos of collective work, the opportunity to support up-and-coming young authors and to ensure the survival of work by an illustrious predecessor, invitations to take part in productive exchanges on a local, national and international level, and the sheer obsessive pursuit of perfectionism. But there are also frustrations: the never-ending grind of getting manuscripts ready for the printer, wearying battles with publishers' reps, the constant need to manage the expectations of authors and the skewing of the market by competitors prepared to outsource printing to Asia. The author explains his decision finally to withdraw from his publishing commitments and to focus on his own work. His conclusion, about the future of comic production in Quebec, is, however, optimistic and devoid of cynicism.

Democratic Careening

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 729-763 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Slater
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Developing Country ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Accountability ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Twenty First Century

Democracy in the developing world is generally outliving expectations, but not outperforming them. Democratic collapse has happily been a far rarer event thus far in the twenty-first century than it was in the twentieth. Yet it does not exactly ring true to say that most developing country democracies are consolidating. This review essay ventures the claim that political scientists need to transcend their rightful concerns with how and why young democracies collapse or consolidate, and devote more attention to theorizing how and why they careen. It defines democratic careening as political instability sparked by intense conflict between partisan actors deploying competing visions of democratic accountability. Careening occurs when actors who argue that democracy requires substantial inclusivity of the entire populace (vertical accountability) clash with rivals who defend democracy for its constraints against excessive concentrations of unaccountable power, particularly in the political executive (horizontal accountability). These arguments are elaborated through reviews of leading theoretical works on democratic break-down as well as detailed case studies of Thailand and taiwan.

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