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.

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

It's not Utopian to believe that we can create a global registry of financial assets so we know who owns what in different countries.

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

The democratic ideal has always been related to a moderate level of inequality. I think one big reason why electoral democracy flourished in 19th century America better than 19th century Europe is because you had more equal distribution of wealth in America.

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.

The principal mechanism for convergence at the international as well as the domestic level is the diffusion of knowledge.