There is never a ‘meritocracy’ – a ‘just’ correspondence between performance and income – in capitalism. However, the idea of a just income is useful: it justifies conditions in which a discussion about just wages occurs, but not one about the relations of disposition and power that actually underlie and regulate income. This legitimizing function is what Piketty has in mind when he warns against growing inequality. What does he see as the central problem of growing inequality and the concentration of wealth? The fact that wealth is increasingly distributed through inheritances and not through performance. With that – and only with that – inequality becomes injustice and thus a problem for Piketty, since inheritance is a way of transmitting wealth that is not mediated by the market, which he regards as scandalous. His demand is that only the market should decide the distribution of income. The market is for him the central entity of justice: market results are fair results.
this. is. so. good.