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.

It's important to realize that innovation and growth in itself are not sufficient to moderate inequality of wealth.

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

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

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

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

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.