In their house editorial regarding the degree of wisdom of wealth taxes, the WSJ‘s editors noted this regarding a collection of celebrity economists’ position on such taxes.

M Zucman and his fellow French celebrity economists, Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, don’t believe high taxes and a generous welfare state materially affect the incentives to work and invest. When people respond predictably to the perverse incentives that politicians create, French economists claim they are acting irrationally. So with a wealth tax.

Stipulate that’s true, and that people do act irrationally in response to incentives, perverse or otherwise. It’s still how people behave, even the wealthy.

Zucman and his fellows insist on living in their idealized fantasy world, rather than handling reality.