AI reading of Capital in the 22nd Century, By Philip Trammell and Dwarkesh Patel.
Thomas Piketty argued that inequality spirals upward unless we stop it; most economists thought he was wrong about the past. In this guest essay for Philip Trammell, Dwarkesh Patel asks a more uncomfortable question: what if Piketty turns out to be right about the future? Revisiting the old debates about capital, labor, and inheritance "with our AGI hats on," Patel explores what happens to the rules of wealth accumulation when robots show up to do the work, touching on everything from the privatization of returns to the peculiar economics of tax havens in a world of runaway automation.
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:00:07 - 1. Introduction
00:04:02 - 2. Background
00:04:53 - The classic “Baumol vs. Jevons”
00:11:49 - Against Piketty on the past
00:18:38 - For Piketty on the future
00:19:13 - 3. Inequality absent policy
00:25:19 - The inequality spiral
00:31:55 - International catch-up will slow or end
00:34:06 - Inheritance, and charitable trusts, will grow more important
00:38:32 - Inheriting the earth
00:42:58 - 4. Equality via policy
00:47:43 - How to redistribute
00:51:19 - Tax inheritances especially
00:52:26 - Try for international coordination
01:00:06 - Tax natural resources?
01:02:55 - Beyond direct redistribution
01:05:41 - Inheriting the earth redux
