Thomas Piketty is in the news. A French economist who works on wealth and income inequality, he has recently published a blockbuster: Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It came out in French last year, and its English translation appeared earlier this year. Published by the Harvard University Press, the translation has become a global bestseller. Using a great deal of data from both Europe and America, he argues that inequality grows as wealth grows. Although he has been criticized for his mishandling of some of the data, the proposition is hardly surprising. Growing inequality has thus become a topic of great interest. As witnessed by articles in the top financial newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, even the rich are getting concerned about the possible backlash, for Piketty ultimately argues that only the state can curb growing inequality with growing taxes. But this is where the connection with Marx’s masterpiece ends. The working class of yesteryear has vanished from the scene. If there is any social force that has taken its place, it is the lower middle class, which is forever propagated by envy of the upper middle class, and especially the lofty tycoons. If Piketty’s book can motivate any social upheaval, it will smack of fascism rather than communism. And that is the paradox of capital in the Twenty-First Century that has escaped the French economist.