Dynasty

About this Episode

After discussion of failing memory, mispronunciation of names, and legal scholarship, we turn to a very serious topic with our guest, Eric Kades. The looming threat of dynastic wealth in the United States has been much discussed since, and even before, the publication of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. We discuss Piketty's now-famous inequality, r > g, how certain legal rules handled the building of perpetual dynasties, the attack on those rules during the historically unusual period during which many of us have grown up, and Eric's proposed tax to fend off some of the dangers.

This episode's links:

• Eric Kade’s faculty profile and writing
• Eric Kades, Of Piketty and Perpetuities
• Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century