Photo/ Ed Alcock For The New York Times |
Steven Erlanger
A French scholar is reviving the art
of big-idea political economics,
with data.
Economist Thomas Piketty remembers
a trip he took with a close friend to Romania in early 1990 after the
collapse of the Soviet empire.
"This sort vaccinated me for life
against lazy, anticapitalist rhetoric, because when you see these empty
shops, you see these people queuing
for nothing in the street," he said "it became clear to me that we need
private property and market initiative
not just for economic efficiency but for
personal freedoms."