Con-D.6 — Piketty’s r > g Is Contested; Does Not Entail Collapse#

Severity: D (Substantial) | Sphere: Se6 | Target: th8 (evidence base)

The PET system’s empirical case for “capitalism without Jubilee leads to BABL” leans heavily on Piketty’s r > g thesis. This premise is contested:

  1. Rognlie (2015) showed Piketty’s rising capital share is driven almost entirely by housing, not productive capital. Net-of-housing capital income shares have been roughly stable.

  2. Acemoglu and Robinson (2015) argued Piketty’s “general laws of capitalism” ignore institutional roles. Wealth concentration is a consequence of specific institutional arrangements, not an iron law.

  3. Even granting r > g, inequality can persist for centuries without civilizational collapse. The Roman Empire, Chinese imperial system, and Indian caste system all maintained extreme inequality for extended periods.

Steel-man: Milanovic (2016) documents “Kuznets waves” — inequality rising and falling over long periods without convergence to either of th8’s two attractors. Scheidel (2017), The Great Leveler, shows the historical forces that actually reduce inequality are mass-mobilization warfare, revolution, state collapse, and pandemics — not voluntary Jubilee. The mechanism of redistribution matters, and the historical record does not support voluntary periodic resets as the primary mode of preventing concentration.

(Source: C6 from OOv1 Critique Round 1.)