According to Marx, capital has the tendency for concentration and centralization in the hands of richest capitalists. Marx explains:

"It is concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large capitals.... Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many.... The battle of competition is fought by cheapening of commodities. The cheapness of commodities demands, caeteris paribus, on the productiveness of labour, and this again on the scale of production. Therefore, the larger capitals beat the smaller. It will further be remembered that, with the development of the capitalist mode of production, there is an increase in the minimum amount of individual capital necessary to carry on a business under its normal conditions. The smaller capitals, therefore, crowd into spheres of production which Modern Industry has only sporadically or incompletely got hold of. Here competition rages.... It always ends in the ruin of many small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hands of their conquerors, partly vanish."

Combining Glyn and Streeck with Piketty helps us to identify where the fault lines of future political contests will lie: in broad fights over debt, taxation, and public spending as the fiftieth through ninetieth percentiles in the income and wealth tables lose ground to the top 10%, and in more specific conflicts as professionals and small businesspeople in the top 10% lose ground to the 1% and yet smaller fractions. They also suggest that these problems ultimately emerge from differential power — the ability of some groups rather than others to control the state. Finally, these analyses help clarify that what is exceptional about the trente glorieuses (1940s-1970s) must be understood in a political dimension

freeman3 wrote:I don't dispute that Marx had some powerful insights. But his followers did not do so well in applying his philosophical system to the real world (kind of a typical problem with philosophers...some of their insights are profound but be wary of applying their philosophical system as a whole because there is much that is wrong as well as right)

Anyway, I was not really assessing whether his ideas still carried explanatory power, but whether any idea with his stamp would be well-received in the West. Liberals have been lagging in the contest of ideas with conservatives in recent decades; perhaps I am optimistically seeing something here with Pikkety.

Combining Glyn and Streeck with Piketty helps us to identify where the fault lines of future political contests will lie: in broad fights over debt, taxation, and public spending as the fiftieth through ninetieth percentiles in the income and wealth tables lose ground to the top 10%, and in more specific conflicts as professionals and small businesspeople in the top 10% lose ground to the 1% and yet smaller fractions. They also suggest that these problems ultimately emerge from differential power — the ability of some groups rather than others to control the state. Finally, these analyses help clarify that what is exceptional about the trente glorieuses (1940s-1970s) must be understood in a political dimension

There does seem in places to be a growing concern that the middle classes are stumbling. And yes, we will continue to debate the balance of debt, taxation and spending