French economist Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has received rave reviews, with some calling it a masterpiece that might change global capitalism in the 21st century.
The main idea expressed in Piketty’s book is that economic growth represents the rate at which the average wealth of society as a whole increases and that return on capital represents the average rate of increase in capital wealth. If the government allows the rate of return on capital to remain higher than the economic growth rate, the wealth of capitalists grows faster than the average.