170 Quotes by Thomas Piketty

What was the good of industrial development, what was the good of all the technological innovations, toil, and population movements if, after half a century of industrial growth, the condition of the masses was still just as miserable as before, and all lawmakers could do was prohibit factory labor by children under the age of eight?

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

The democratic ideal has always been related to a moderate level of inequality. I think one big reason why electoral democracy flourished in 19th century America better than 19th century Europe is because you had more equal distribution of wealth in America.

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.

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

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

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

There is one great advantage to being an academic economist in France: here, economists are not highly respected in the academic and intellectual world or by political and financial elites. Hence they must set aside their contempt for other disciplines and their absurd claim to greater scientific legitimacy, despite the fact that they know almost nothing about anything.

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