The sociology professor and author of Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity argues that the built in ownership and profit factors in capitalism makes extreme accumulation of wealth by owners and extreme inequality inevitable. He takes on people who, in order to save the system that lays the capitalists' golden eggs of power and wealth, have advocated reforms in the past, such as Keynesian policies. However in spite of the past attempts at reforming capitalism, things have only gotten worse. But we still see people today, like Piketty, advocating reforms. The problem is inherent in the system itself, and this time we must change the system.
This is what in critical political economy constitutes the underlying internal contradiction of capitalism, or the overaccumulation problem. Left unchecked, expanding social polarization results in crisis - in recessions and depressions, such as the 1930s Great Depression or the 2008 Great Recession. Worse still, it engenders great social upheavals, political conflicts, wars and even revolutions - precisely the kinds of conflicts and chaos we are witnessing in the world today.
In the view of the reformers, however, it is not the capitalist system itself, but its particular institutional organization that is to blame for inequalities. They believe it can be offset by increased taxes, social welfare programs and other reformist measures.
