Property's Effect on Economic Inequality – Property, Piketty, and Capitalism

This Article examines property law’s effect on economic inequality, particularly centered on Thomas Piketty’s findings in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Piketty finds that when the rate of return on capital is greater than economic growth, capital concentrates among the wealthy, and—in other words—increases economic inequality. This Article focuses on how property law works to increase the rate of return on capital above economic growth. First, this Article begins by examining how different aspects of property law work to increase the rate of return on capital. Second, this Article presents a way forward in light of property law’s correlation with economic inequality. In particular, this Article examines whether reforms would be best seen by implementing a global tax (Piketty’s solution) or reforming the law itself (a solution put forward by other scholars). This Article concludes that legislative reform is not recommended as a way forward where property law is concerned