170 Quotes by Thomas Piketty

You need some inequality to grow... but extreme inequality is not only useless but can be harmful to growth because it reduces mobility and can lead to political capture of our democratic institutions.

When you are an entrepreneur, you have founded your own firm, it is so easy to find that you exist - you are the main shareholder of your company; it is very easy to look at the stock market position of your company to know how rich you are.

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.

What I'm pushing for is an economic discipline that will be closer to other social sciences; in particular, we should be more pragmatic about the methods that we are using instead of pretending that we have our own scientific apparatus with very sophisticated mathematic models that distinguish us from sociologists and historians.

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

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

When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.

I am afraid that if you don't find peaceful domestic solutions to our inequality and social problems, then it's always tempting to find other people responsible for our problems.

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.