I’ve just spent a week digging into Capital in the 21st Century, and I’m taking away a few points:

• Piketty seems less “kneejerk-Leftish” than I had thought. He has been pretty much misrepresented. He is no lover of Marxism in any case, but his data are pretty nuanced.
• Above all, he has attempted, and sort of delivered, an attempt to really quantify the changes in national income, national wealth, and national distribution of income between capital and labor over a long historical period. He has numerous caveats about the potential inaccuracies in his sources, and is careful to draw attention to only the most salient takeaways.
• Probably the most salient takeaway is that the 20th Century was a disaster for capital. The 21st century has capital’s share of things returning to pre-20th-century levels.
• I’m satisfied — this third time around trying to read him — that he is a worthwhile source. Whatever role the argument about income inequality plays in 7 Hard Problems, Piketty is a good choice for one of the sources. I’m not sure which others I’ll want to use.