I'd be interested to hear exactly what it is that Thomas Piketty has done that makes you call him notorious.
Piketty's writing is deep and profound. It is well-researched. It makes sense. It has had a real effect on my own thinking. It has been widely acclaimed by The New York Times, The Economist, The Financial Times, The New Yorker, …
The criticism I've seen of Piketty are typically shallow and hand-wavy, usually by people who have clearly done no more than skim-read the introduction to Capital. Capital is a giant 500+ page book—every claim it makes is backed up by extraordinary detail.
Piketty's main claim is simple: the world economy is completely unbalanced, bringing misery to most of its inhabitance. He explains how this imbalance is the result of Global Capitalism running amok without any checks or balances. Would anyone sane disagree with this premise in a world about to see its first trillionaire?
Modern economic thinking is dominated by economists who seem to wilfully misunderstand how capitalism is failing humanity and damaging the planet. They seem scared to point out the obvious fact that in a world of trillionaires expecting interest on their capital, their capital will bleed the world dry.
Maybe you should read Capital before you dismiss one of the most influential thinkers of the past few decades.
