Piketty's Capital: An Economist's Inequality Ideas Are All the Rage

A specter is haunting Europe and the U.S.—the specter of plutocracy. In Britain, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has suggested the moment has arrived to consider a wealth tax. In France, which already has one, plans to ease its bite were recently canceled. Even in the more timid precincts of Washington, you cannot swing a V for Vendetta mask without hitting a think tank panel on inequality. Everyone, it seems, is worried we are shortly headed for a world in which a handful of rich people will own everything, and the rest are forced to rent their air and water from Mark Zuckerberg.