Asymmetry worse than inequality.

Prof Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is of the opinion that "a wealth tax of 2% on billionaires would raise a lot of money to fund India's social infrastructure and health. He also urged India to raise its tax revenue as a proportion of GDP," wrote Prof Satya Narayan Misra. Piketty's book is a reminder of Das Kapital by Karl Marx. Piketty's hypothesis is that "inequality is not an accident, but rather a feature of capitalism and can only be reversed through state interventionism." wikipedia. Marx proposed that "the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value." wikipedia. The first volume of Das Kapital was published in 1867, just after the American civil war from 1861-65 (Britannica) and probably draws on the persecution of slaves in the US. This led to Communism in which the working class "would control the government and economy" and would form a classless society "in which the production and distribution of goods would be based upon the principle 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'."Britannica. However, Communism did not create a workers' Utopia. When the state controls every resource, service and means of production it gives total control over the lives of citizens to a small coterie of individuals, who then enforce their power through executions, famine, deaths through forced labor, deportation, starvation and imprisonment (wikipedia). Perhaps, Prof Misra should read The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (wikipedia) before recommending The Robin Hood Effect which is income and wealth distribution from the rich to the poor (Investopedia). In November 2024, the Supreme Court "upheld the inclusion of 'socialist, secular' in the Preamble of the Constitution." The Hindu. India already has a plethora of social subsidies for the poor. wikipedia. The e-Shram site of the Ministry of Labour & Employment gives a list of cash transfer schemes, distribution of food grains and accident and health insurance for the poor by the central government. eshram. gov.in. "In fact, the Economic Survey of 2022-23 had pointed out that as of December 2022, there were more than 2,000 such schemes run by state governments." In practice, India is quietly adopting universal basic income, wrote Vivek Kaul. There is no accountability. Just 6.68%, of Indians, or 80.9 million, filed Income Tax Returns (ITR) in financial year 2023-24 (FY24), up from 74 million in FY23. However, of the 74 million filers, 49 million declared zero taxable income in FY23 (Assessment Year 2023-24). ET. Thus 66.2% of those who filed ITR did not earn enough to pay income tax. Even so "Net direct tax collections so far this year have witnessed a strong uptrend, having gone up by 16.45% year-on-year to over Rs 15.82 trillion as of mid-December." Net individual tax collection was Rs 7.97 trillion while net corporate tax collection was less at Rs 7.42 trillion. ET. The state is defined as having a 'monopoly on violence'. Britannica. Income tax is extortion with threats of imprisonment. The government controls the investigating agencies CBI and ED and can imprison anyone without giving any reason. The Wire. It's not inequality of wealth, it is the asymmetry of power that is killing Indians. Professors should ask the right questions.