Quote (dro94 @ Aug 19 2016 01:50pm)
Ok I've now watched this vid. It seems they're nitpicking minor details without actually critiquing the empirical evidence Piketty sources. They allude to an interview where Piketty basically states this, and laugh it off, but still don't actually refute it in any way,
As I wasn't satisfied with their verbal critique, I looked up the paper they are talking about:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2543012I only skimmed the literature, but I looked at the graphs. The 'communist distortion' claim is bullcrap, cam. The historical innaccuracies very minor.
Instead of saying the projections of capital-income ratios are exaggerated because he doesn't take into account depreciation of capital or other slowdown effects, they go into conspiracy.
Overall it's quite a poor critique, and while there are valid criticisms of his book that I also take issue with, he shone the light on the increasing levels of inherited wealth in society. Even if he mistakes some of the increases in capital to rising prices of land and things like that.
Calling numerous major and minor historical inaccuracies in his narrative that are central to the book's theme and exposing his consistent bias and fill-in-the-blanks-with-socialist-propaganda methodology 'a minor flaw' and writing it off as 'poor critique' is pretty hilariously convenient for you, especially considering you 'skimmed it' at best.
I understand that you'd rather stick with your hero's rosy puff piece interview but cmon now.
Quote
Whereas other data critiques, including that of the Financial Times, have raised important normative and methodological questions in Piketty’s data presentations, the issues highlighted here suggest an even more fundamental problem of his reliance upon factually mistaken data claims, unsupported assertions of validity, and certain dubious chart constructions that only make sense in service to a preconceived narrative.
The discrepancies we identify are pervasive in the book, beginning with misstatements of basic historical fact and extending to an abundance of political distortion and confirmation bias in his data selection and methodological choices.In the aforementioned use of communist data assumptions to accentuate the shape of a desired trend line, ostensibly explaining a hypothesized characteristic of capitalism, it is difficult to maintain a noble opinion of the scholarship involved. These problems afflict Capital in the Twenty-First Century’s historical narrative in ways that are both large and small, although the frequency with which they occur is sufficient to warrant deep skepticism of the book as a whole and especially the many instances where Piketty substitutes an appeal to the reader’s trust for annotation that is—at best—murky. It is therefore curious that the early reaction to Capital credited its data analysis despite other reservations with its contents and prescriptions. To the contrary, an abundance of questionable and problematic data claims may well mean that empirics are the book’s weakest point.
Sounds a bit minor eh?
They also allude to other areas of the book that have already been picked over as garbage.
This post was edited by cambovenzi on Aug 19 2016 01:09pm