… said the Dodo to Alice. That philosophy is harmless enough when the subject is party favors. It is extremely unwise when applied to the larger distribution of rewards in society, as it all but guarantees that the total rewards produced by society will diminish over time. Thomas Piketty is preoccupied with the notion that future growth of the capital stock will exacerbate the unequal distribution of rewards in society. He believes the ensuing instability could be the ultimate undoing of capitalism. Piketty has gone to some effort to create a sort of intellectual foundation for this point of view. The egalitarian left is infatuated with his new book, “Capital In The Twenty-First Century.” But Piketty’s analysis is more like a series of assertions, with little in the way of solid empirical and analytical support. Here are two insightful reviews: Garrett Jones in Reason and Ryan Decker on his “Updated Priors” blog.