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.

When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.

Over a long period of time, the main force in favor of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills.

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.

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 think there is any serious evidence that we need to be paying people more than 100 times the average wage in order to get high-performing managers.