Thomas Piketty quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Thomas Piketty

Thomas Piketty Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Piketty on Wise Famous Quotes.

The main force pushing toward reduction in inequality has always been the diffusion of knowledge and the diffusion of education.

The only way to overcome these contradictions is for the countries of the Eurozone (or at any rate those who are willing) to pool their public debts.

Refusing to deal with numbers rarely serves the interests of the least well-off.

Income from labor [in the United States] is about as unequally distributed as has ever been observed anywhere.

Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.

Modern redistribution is built around a logic of rights and a principle of equal access to a certain number of goods deemed to be fundamental.

Having a decent share of the national wealth for the middle class is not bad for growth. It is actually useful both for equity and efficiency reasons.

We want capitalism and market forces to be the slave of democracy rather than the opposite.

I believe in the power of ideas, I believe in the power of books, but you have to give them time.

The bad news (or good news, depending on your point of view) is that things have always been like this.

Protectionism does not produce wealth, and free trade and economic openness are ultimately in everyone's interest

What I argue for is a progressive tax, a global tax, based on the taxation of private property.

Taxation is not a technical matter. It is preeminently a political and philosophical issue, perhaps the most important of all political issues.

The United States could transform its property tax system into a progressive tax on net worth without asking permission to the rest of the world.

There is a fundamentalist belief by capitalists that capital will save the world, and it just isn't so.

political democracies that do not democratize their economic systems are inherently unstable.

Progress in medicine together with improved living conditions has therefore, it is argued, totally transformed the very essence of capital.

Without precisely defined sources, methods, and concepts, it is possible to see absolutely everything and its opposite.

I loved American universities. In many ways, they are better organized - certainly than French universities.

I think inequality is fine, as long as it is in the common interest. The problem is when it gets so extreme, when it becomes excessive.

At the heart of every major political upheaval lies a fiscal revolution.

(autarky does not encourage technological transfer).

the future could hold in store a new world of inequality more extreme than any that preceded it.

The U.S. is the country that invented progressive taxation of income and of inherited wealth in the 1910s and '20s.

wealth in the rich countries is currently divided into two approximately equal (or comparable) parts: real estate and financial assets.

'Das Kapital,' I think, is very difficult to read, and for me, it was not very influential.

the return on capital increases with the size of the initial endowment,

I don't live in the Cold War. Some people maybe still live in the Cold War, but this is their problem, not mine.

We know too little about global wealth dynamics, so we need international transmission of bank information.

Wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence.

My premise is not to tax to destroy the wealth of the wealthy; it's to increase the wealth of the bottom and the middle class.

I'm not as pessimistic as what a number of people seem to believe.

the upper classes instinctively abandoned idleness and invented meritocracy lest universal suffrage deprive them of everything they owned.

Autarky has never promoted prosperity.

I don't pretend that I can predict the future value of the growth rate or rate of return.

Democracy will never be supplanted by a republic of experts - and that is a very good thing.

A tax on capital would promote the general interest over private interests while preserving economic openness and the forces of competition.

can we imagine political institutions that might regulate today's global patrimonial capitalism justly as well as efficiently?

All told, over the period 1932-1980, nearly half a century, the top federal income tax rate in the United States averaged 81 percent.

(which did not exist before the creation of the income tax in 1913)

It's not Utopian to believe that we can create a global registry of financial assets so we know who owns what in different countries.

No hypocrisy is too great when economic and financial elites are obliged to defend their interest.

Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.

Capitalism and market forces are very powerful in producing wealth and innovation. But we need to ensure that these forces act in the common interest.

Sub-Saharan Africa, with a population of 900 million and an annual output of only 1.8 trillion euros (less than the French GDP of 2 trillion),

Everyone is political in his or her own way.

When inequality gets to an extreme, it is completely useless for growth.

tax is always more than just a tax: it is also a way of defining norms and categories and imposing a legal framework on economic activity.

The principal mechanism for convergence at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.

Our modern democratic ideal is based on the hope that inequalities will be based on merit more than inheritance or luck.

one would expect to see a flow of investments in Africa from other countries, especially China and other Asian nations.

Taxation is neither good nor bad in itself. Everything depends on how taxes are collected and what they are used for.

The social sciences collectively know too little to waste time on foolish disciplinary squabbles.

The only continent not in equilibrium is Africa, where a substantial share of capital is owned by foreigners.

Inequality is not necessarily bad in itself: the key question is to decide whether it is justified, whether there are reasons for it.

Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills.

It's important to realize that innovation and growth in itself are not sufficient to moderate inequality of wealth.

I am not political. It is not my job. But I would be happy if politicians could read my work and draw some conclusions from it.