This post has been reworked slightly...
For the economist reader, it all has to do with Pareto and Piketty..
I would have started with the Pareto distribution of incomes that shows how the rich benefit from growth at the expense of the average. Piketty deserves a nobel prize for showing that economists are too narrow in their focus in a world in which information, particularly patents, in the hands of public institutions are grossly undervalued.
My own modelling suggests that a lognormal distribution representing changes in average incomes might be more easily understood by the lay person. Relate change in the rate of return on capital relative to the change in real growth through the lognormal distribution that reflects return on capital in a fast growing economy.
My point is that the faster the economy grows, the more apparent becomes the lognormal distribution viz-a-viz the normal distribution. We accelerate to Piketty unfair land because of more rapid growth. If we want a normal distribution of incomes, we need to slow down the rate of real growth which in turn reduces the rate of return on capital. Its all very edifying. Slow growth is good for the average person while fast or ever faster growth is bad.
How does one achieve a normal distribution of incomes instead of a lognormal one? The fast way is to get rid of patent protection. Its monopolies based on patents that produce faster and faster growth as well as higher and higher yields on capital. If the world adopted share ware technical progress this would reduce the rate of return on capital while allowing a faster rate of economic growth.
Its all very simple and based on Schumpeterian growth dynamics. Somehow we are led to the idea that we must protect the interests of the rich through patents. They do not auger well for income distribution.
The lie is that patents do good or help with innovation. Patent life can be shortened as an experiment say from 20 to 7 years.
Another step would be to raise interest real rates so that borrowing for acquisition would be reduced. So called rich companies accelerate their rate of return on capital through acquisitions.
Lastly, take on the banks and make them really efficient like the text book. That would greatly help in the distribution of unearned returns on capital.
Arthur
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/25/piketty-and-pareto/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog+Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion%3DBody&_r=0
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