By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026Piketty's landmark volume was grounded in a detailed analysis of 300 years' (!) worth of global capital flows, painstakingly compiled by a large team of grad students from a massive set of heterogeneous records. 5/ 11785
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026The book's conclusion is the statement that "returns to capital exceed the rate of growth over the long term" (abbreviated as "r > g"). This may sound innocuous, but it is *explosive*. 6/ 423230
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026If r > g, then the most wealth will inevitably accumulate in the hands of people who *start* with the most wealth, irrespective of whether they do anything productive with that money. 7/ 229545
David Rosnick @rosnick.bsky.social · 12/08/2026This is a dangerous oversimplification, unfortunately. Shiny and distracting. The actual conclusion is that under restrictive conditions (zero miscellaneous volume adjustments and zero real capital gains) when r<g capital cannot self-perpetuate without saving in excess of capital incomecancelinfinity.blogspot.comThe Evolution of Capital, Part II.A long while back, I promised to get into the significance of $r>g$ to Piketty’s framework. To review where I left off , Piketty’s “stock ... 110
