Quotes by Thomas Piketty

About Thomas Piketty:

Thomas Piketty is a French economist who works on wealth and income inequality. He is a professor (directeur d'études) at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), professor at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial professor at the London School of Economics new International Inequalities Institute.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a ver...

Thomas Piketty

They (economists) 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.

Thomas Piketty

In contrast to what many people in Britain and the United States believe, the true figures on growth (as best one can judge from official national accounts data) show that Britain and the United States have not grown any more rapidly since 1980 than ...

Thomas Piketty

Between the poorest 50 percent (who own 5 percent of total wealth, or an average of 20,000 euros each in the example [Europe 2010]) and the richest 10 percent (who own 60 percent of total wealth, or an average of 1.2 million euros each) lies the midd...

Thomas Piketty

Everyone is political in his or her own way.

Thomas Piketty

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.

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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.

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

Economists tend to think they are much, much smarter than historians, than everybody. And this is a bit too much because at the end of the day, we don't know very much in economics.

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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.

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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.

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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

Thomas Piketty

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.

Thomas Piketty

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.

Thomas Piketty

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Piketty
  • DescriptionFrench economist
  • AliasesPiketty
  • BornMay 7, 1971
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionEconomist
  • WorksCapital In The Twenty-First Century
  • AwardsYrjö Jahnsson Award; Prix Du Meilleur Jeune Économiste De France