Is This Feasible?

This chapter presents an analysis of the corpus of newspaper articles focused on how news media engage with themes and issues related to redistribution policies. One frequently posed question in this context concerns the feasibility and effectiveness of enhanced redistribution policies. Another set of questions concern the scope, role, and optimal approach to novel forms of global wealth tax, the redistribution policy most commonly referred to in the corpus of news media discourses. In the effort to unveil the interrelatedness of dominance, power, and control of readership opinion so often manifest in the news media texts, it becomes clear that the use of language is crucial in discourses related to policy options. Thus, this chapter draws on primary research materials to provide distinctive insights on the approach and discourses of the news media in shaping the readers’ knowledge, opinion, or beliefs with respect to the wider potential, role, and scope of redistribution policies. Chapter 9 provides an in-depth analysis of the ways redistribution policies are portrayed within the overall Piketty debate. After a short quantitative section examining what types of redistribution policies are mentioned or discussed, the chapter provides a detailed analysis of the legitimation strategies expressing a negative or a positive stance towards redistribution policies. Finally, the chapter discusses two common themes in the overall corpus: that articles ascribe a highly ambivalent role to the state, and a positive role to the entrepreneur as innovator.