Thomas Piketty

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

— Thomas Piketty

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

— Thomas Piketty

“When the rate of return on capital significantly exceeds the growth rate of the economy (as it did through much of history…

— Thomas Piketty

One way to have broader access to wealth is to reduce the tax on the large group and increase the tax on…

— Thomas Piketty

I certainly agree that capital is not a one-dimensional object, and that the return on capital takes very different forms for different…

— Thomas Piketty

“it was the wars of the twentieth century that wiped away the past to create the illusion that capitalism had been structurally…

— Thomas Piketty

I think if you look back through time, the history of income, wealth and taxation is full of surprise. So I am…

— Thomas Piketty

“A capital tax is the most appropriate response to the inequality r > g as well as to the inequality of returns…

— Thomas Piketty

“According to our estimates, the optimal top tax rate in the developed countries is probably above 80 percent.50 Do not be misled…

— Thomas Piketty

“for example, the wealthy planter Quentin Tarantino portrays in Django Unchained is prepared to sell beautiful Broomhilda for only $700 but wants…

— Thomas Piketty

“Knowledge and skill diffusion is the key to overall productivity growth as well as the reduction of inequality both within and between…

— Thomas Piketty

Economists have put themselves in a position where what they are doing is supposed to be impossible to understand for outsiders, so…

— Thomas Piketty

“Autarky has never promoted prosperity.”

— Thomas Piketty

“They (economists) must set aside their contempt for other disciplines and their absurd claim to greater scientific legitimacy, despite the fact that…

— Thomas Piketty

“the principal force for convergence—the diffusion of knowledge—is only partly natural and spontaneous. It also depends in large part on educational policies,…

— Thomas Piketty

“This complex and contradictory relation to inequality largely persists in the United States to this day: on the one hand this is…

— Thomas Piketty

“The reality was so striking that it even found expression in an animated cartoon, The Aristocats, set in Paris in 1910. The…

— Thomas Piketty

“When a country goes from a population of 3 million to a population of 300 million (to say nothing of the radical…

— Thomas Piketty

“This fundamental inequality, which I will write as r > g (where r stands for the average annual rate of return on…

— Thomas Piketty

“Average global per capita income is currently around 760 euros per month; in 1700, it was less than 70 euros per month,…

— Thomas Piketty

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

— Thomas Piketty

Contrary to a tenacious myth, France is not owned by California pension funds or the Bank of China, any more than the…

— 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…

— Thomas Piketty

“if we consider the total growth of the US economy in the thirty years prior to the crisis, that is, from 1977…

— Thomas Piketty

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

— Thomas Piketty