Bill Gates’ solution to income inequality

It might not come as a surprise to many that Bill Gates, whom Forbes’ magazine ranks as the second wealthiest man in the world, doesn’t agree with the ideas of French economist Thomas Piketty.

It’s Piketty, after all, who made a big splash this year with his book Capital in the 21^st Century, which argued that it is a fundamental law of capitalism that wealth will grow more concentrated absent destabilizing events like global wars. Piketty’s solution? A global tax on capital that could help governments better understand how wealth is distributed and stem the tide of inevitably increasing inequality, which Piketty believes is socially destabilizing.

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If you believe the Forbes list, there is nobody in the world besides Carlos Slim who has more to lose than Bill Gates if Piketty’s global tax on wealth were to be instituted. But Gates’ critique of Piketty’s work, published…