The recent publication of The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman is noteworthy for several reasons. But is it credible?

The debate over wealth inequality is often obscured by the commingling of solutions, taxes, and blame. Solutions, including taxes if necessary, advance the discussion; blame does not.

Several wealth tax proposals have been made to address the existence of wealth inequality. Before these proposals can be considered, the cause of wealth inequality must be understood.

Put on the defensive by Bernie Sanders, who is a self-described socialist (albeit not in the true definition of the word), Democratic candidates for president have been asked to take a side. Are you a socialist or a capitalist? So far, they all profess to be capitalists. Their rhetoric, however, would suggest they don’t always understand what this means. Just recently, Joe Biden criticized companies for not paying their employees a living wage while buying back stock. In her autobiography, Kamala Harris attributes the decline in middle-class wages to corporate greed. Elizabeth Warren’s invective against Wall Street is legendary. How can they be both against it and for it? Perhaps we can help them to reconcile their inconsistency. Let’s try to be fact-based and rational.