By Jonathan B. Wight

Love him or hate him, when Bill Gates speaks, people should listen. 

And I’ve both loved and hated him: loved him for his philanthropy, and hated him for his cutthroat business decisions. 

Gates has now entered the fray over Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, largely defending Piketty’s view that inequality is a big social ill that needs fixing, but disagreeing over his prediction based on r > g and Piketty’s policy solution. 

Gates writes:

"I very much agree with Piketty that:

• High levels of inequality are a problem—messing up economic incentives, tilting democracies in favor of powerful interests, and undercutting the ideal that all people are created equal.
• Capitalism does not self-correct toward greater equality—that is, excess wealth concentration can have a snowball effect if left unchecked.
• Governments can play a constructive role in offsetting the snowballing tendencies if and when they choose to do so."

Overall, Gates offers a pragmatic set of solutions that are far better than Piketty’s global tax on capital.