"an idea whose time has come . . ." #4 -- everybody's talking about it

Everybody, from Paul Krugman to Pope Francis, is talking about the new focus on economic inequality triggered by Piketty's book.    The New York Times hasn't missed a day without something about it, and Paul Krugman has devoted several recent columns to the subject.   And then there are the conservatives, who are busy finding fault with the book but without really being able to refute it's data or logic.

On Friday, Krugman wrote this:

"What's really new . . . is the way it demolishes that most cherished of conservative myths, that insistence that we're living in a meritocracy in which great wealth is earned and deserved. . . .

"But how do you make that defense if the rich derive much of ther income not from the work they do but from the assets they own?   And what if great wealth comes increasingly not from enterprise but from inheritance?"

He goes on to say that, in two decades of debate about inequality, he has "yet to see conservative "experts" manage to dispute the numbers without tripping over their own intellectual shoelaces."    And then, with a touch of irony:  "Why, it's almost as if the facts are fundamentally not on their side. "    Instead, they resort to hinting that anyone who takes the other side is suspect of socialist leanings.

And then there was the pope.   After a busy day yesterday presiding over the canonization of two very different popes, John XXIII and John Paul II, and thus straddling a divide between social issues and church organization, Pope Francis managed to get off a tweet on the subject of inequality:

"Inequality is the root of social evil."

So, I would say this puts the pope solidly behind the current tidal wave of seeing inequality as bad for society.    Doesn't this then sort of confirm my saying this is an idea whose time has come?    Shouldn't the Democrats ride the crest of the wave and make this the core campaign issue?

Ralph