Zitat des Tages von Thomas Piketty:
Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.
I was born too late to have any temptation with communism, or at least Soviet-type communism. Travelling in Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union, you clearly don't want to defend a system that would have empty shops and a totalitarian regime and internal passports.
I'm not as pessimistic as what a number of people seem to believe.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'Das Kapital,' I think, is very difficult to read, and for me, it was not very influential.
I loved American universities. In many ways, they are better organized - certainly than French universities.
What I argue for is a progressive tax, a global tax, based on the taxation of private property.
Private property and the market system are good not only to promote innovation and to promote growth; private property and the market system are good for our personal freedom.
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.
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.
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.
I don't pretend that I can predict the future value of the growth rate or rate of return.
Yeah, I am in favor of migration. But I am also in favor of education. But at the same time, I am in favor of progressive taxation. I think we need all of this. I think we don't have to choose one.
The main force pushing toward reduction in inequality has always been the diffusion of knowledge and the diffusion of education.
