Super-rich children take private jets to college

When Thomas Piketty published his Capital in the 21 Century, the Financial Times tried to dismiss his research as bogus. Its more conventional thinkers hated his argument that the children of the rich would receive vast amounts of unearned wealth because the assets of their parents would grow faster than the real economy. If Piketty was right, claims that we were a society which valued social mobility would become a joke: a screen that hid the rigged game of life. However idle or stupid they were, rich kids would win, whatever politicians parroted about “opportunity for all”. Only hefty wealth and inheritance taxes could stop them, and build a fairer Britain.

I can see why Piketty’s argument and its implications made for uncomfortable reading for some writers – although not, I am pleased to say, all writers –  at the FT. Its journalists made a determined effort to discredit him. His numbers were wrong, they said.