[...] On the one hand, inequality appears to be only explainable in terms of different levels of labour performance and therefore only legitimate in terms of labour performance; on the other hand, reality shows that this is not the case. That is the background as to why Piketty moves in circles. He thus ends up arguing that inequality is growing because inequality exists. He argues in a circular fashion, without explaining how ‘original’ inequality came into the world at all, and which socially specific inequality characterizes capitalism: the separation of direct producers from the objective possibilities of production. Piketty thus has noticeably little to say about the manner in which inequality arises and persists in capitalism. That has consequences.