On Sunday I saw a student production of Vaclav Havel's adaptation of The Beggar's Opera at the University of Washington.  And guess what one of the whores was reading?  Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, of course. An honest working girl, she wasn't too impressed with the inequality thing. Here's what she was complaining about. It's right on page one of the Introduction. When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based. Inequality? Hey, a girl's got to get a return on her capital assets while she's still got them. Speaking as a middling sort of capitalist, with my own particular assets, I have to say I agree...(Read Full Article)