Piketty's Progressive Economic Policies Fall Flat

French economist Thomas Piketty was the darling of the Left last year as the champion of progressive policy proposals — including an "80% tax rate on high incomes and progressive tax on great wealth" — to eradicate economic inequality.  He may have sold a lot of books, argues Michael Barone, but "his policies don't seem to be selling well anywhere."

There were no campaign ads calling for Piketty taxes this fall. Raising the minimum wage got some attention, but, writes Barone,

It is only slightly hyperbolic to say that an increased minimum wage is a transfer of income from fast-food customers to fast-food workers minus those who are replaced by kiosks. That's not a very effective way to sock it to the top 1 percent. ...

America already has lots of economic redistribution. American voters evidently sense that more redistribution would sap economic growth. They're willing to throw a little to minimum wage earners, but they don't want to kill the geese laying the golden eggs.

Piketty's progressive policies are faring no better in other nations.

Even in Brazil, with near-zero growth and mush greater inequality than the U.S., incumbent President Dilma Rousseff saw her percentage slip from 56 percent in 2010 to 52 percent this October.

In Britain, facing an election next May, there are calls within the Labour Party to oust leader Ed Miliband, who has called for freezing energy prices and a tax on "mansions," which would hit Londoners hard.

Piketty confesses he has seldom left Paris in his adult years. But even there his policies are in trouble. The job approval of Socialist President Francois Hollande, who imposed a top income tax rate of 75 percent, currently hovers just above 10 percent.

Politicians opposing massive economic redistribution have a hard time coming up with appealing rhetoric. But there seems to be something more powerful working in their favor — a widespread if 8unspoken understanding that government attempts to "spread the wealth around" (as candidate Obama once told Joe the Plumber) tend to destroy it instead.