title:  Here’s What The World’s Top Economist Is Saying About Bernie Sanders
text: Thomas Piketty, the French economist who started a revolution of thought on income inequality when he wrote Capital in the Twenty-First Century. He is now considered one of the world s top economists. He is now sharing his thoughts on Bernie Sanders and the movement that is driving his campaignPikkety agrees that Bernie Sanders and his supporters have the right idea when it comes to economics. Though the economist suggests that Sanders may be too  white  and too old to win an election.Other than those two caveats, Pikkety gives Bernie Sanders a glowing, if tacit, endorsement, writing that,  In many respects, we are witnessing the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections. Conservatism in the media may have something to do with the reason Pikkety is critical of Sanders  electability with racial and other political minorities. Recent polls show the race between Sanders and Clinton is a dead heat. Polls seem to indicate that the main difference between Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters is generational.Piketty goes on to say that Sanders is reviving the progressive agenda. He writes: Sanders  success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism. Hillary Clinton, who fought to the left of Barack Obama in 2008 on topics such as health insurance, appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime.Sanders makes clear he wants to restore progressive taxation and a higher minimum wage ($15 an hour). To this he adds free healthcare and higher education in a country where inequality in access to education has reached unprecedented heights, highlighting a gulf standing between the lives of most Americans, and the soothing meritocratic speeches pronounced by the winners of the system.Meanwhile, the Republican party sinks into a hyper-nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Islam discourse (even though Islam isn t a great religious force in the country), and a limitless glorification of the fortune amassed by rich white people. The judges appointed under Reagan and Bush have lifted any legal limitation on the influence of private money in politics, which greatly complicates the task of candidates like Sanders. Since the oh so tragic passing of Justice Antonio Scalia, the Supreme Court may have the votes needed to end Citizen s United. That would be a major gift to future progressive candidates   Berniecrats   who would abstain from SuperPACs.The way that this election is playing out, it appears that we are witnessing a battle of generations be played out more than anything else. Regardless of who takes the nomination in this election, Sanders  supporters are very much the face of the future of the left.Featured image from Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons