Thomas Piketty Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Economists have put themselves in a position where what they are doing is supposed to be impossible to understand for outsiders, so they don't even talk - sometimes not even with their girlfriend or boyfriend or friends - about what they are doing.”

“I certainly agree that capital is not a one-dimensional object, and that the return on capital takes very different forms for different assets or different people.”