Fareed Zakaria on America’s educational failings:
“It is now
well known that Thomas Piketty — the French economist and author of the
700-page bestseller “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”
— argues that the free market tends to produce inequalities of wealth that
become dynastic and anti-meritocratic. The solution that everyone is talking
about is taxing the rich. But in reading the book, it’s clear that Piketty
recognizes that, “over a long period of time, the main force in favor of
greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills…
After all,
countries such as India and Brazil had extremely high tax rates in the 1970s
and 1980s without creating broadly shared growth. East Asian countries, by
contrast, with high literacy rates and an increasingly skilled workforce,
managed to achieve both growth and relative equity. This is not an argument
against higher taxes but rather one emphasizing that, for the best long-term
results, education remains crucial. Alas, it is an area in which the United
States is failing.”
Click here
for the full column in the Washington Post.