George Monbiot is correct (The rich want us to believe their wealth is good for us all, 30 July) in his praise of Thomas Pikettys proposal for a wealth tax to counteract the insane levels of inequality now generated in our world, and in pointing out that only the Green party is prepared to back this obvious idea. However, we should be careful not to let Pikettys helpful intervention in the debate blind us to the severe limits of his own stance in political economy. I refer principally to Pikettys utter failure to take seriously the ecological limits to growth.
A central component of Pikettys answer to the crisis is: more of the same. More growth, the proceeds of which can then allegedly be redistributed. The truth however is that growth is an alternative to egalitarian redistribution, an alternative to any serious effort to create a more equal society. The promise of growth is a replacement for the need to share. It is a promise of which we should be ever more suspicious, in a world whose biological limits are being ruptured, and in a country where we are now seeing growth, none of the benefits of which are trickling down to the 99% (GDP in the UK is now above the 2007 level, but most people in the country are worse off than they were in 2007).
Continue reading...