Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.

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.

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.

Contrary to a tenacious myth, France is not owned by California pension funds or the Bank of China, any more than the United States belongs to Japanese and German investors. The fear of getting into such a predicament is so strong today that fantasy often outstrips reality. The reality is that inequality with respect to capital is a far greater domestic issue than it is an international one.

Wealth is so concentrated that a large segment of society is virtually unaware of its existence.

Indeed, the distribution of wealth is too important an issue to be left to economists, sociologists, historians, and philosophers.

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