The World Inequality Lab is co-directed by the influential economist Thomas Piketty

it's  always a matter in the end of redefining   a power relation between different social groups  so it cannot be completely peaceful it involves a   conflicting social interest it involves different  groups of people with different agenda and you   know in many ways we have we are in a situation  which is not i think completely different from   00:12:20 the one at the time of the french revolution which  is at the you know those who those who should pay   have somehow managed to design a legal system  and a political system so that they can escape   taxation and and at the same time middle class and  lower class people are you know fed up of paying   the bill for them and so and so the solution is  more and more debt but you know at some point   there will have to be something else will have to  happen and i think it will be roughly the same it   00:12:51 will have to be roughly the same solution as it  was you know 200 years ago which is the end of   fiscal privileges of a small group in the  population that has that has managed to   escape taxation for for for too long

the   true source of economic prosperity is not  financial capitalism investment in education   investment in the real economy in infrastructure  and you know when the in the middle of the 20th   century in the 1950s 1960s when the u.s had were  in a situation of economic dominance over the rest   00:54:32 of the world it was not through extreme financial  inequality except you know you had 19 percent top   income tax rate after roosevelt and but you had  a big educational advance as compared to you   know at that time you had a 90 percent of a court  would go to high school in the us in 1950s 1960s   at the same time it was 20  30 percent in germany or in   00:54:56 france or so and this was this educational  advance which made prosperity historically and and   and we seem to to have forgotten this uh you know  in the us following you know since the 1980s but   so we we have to manage to put this back on the on  this agenda but that's that's of course that's not   that's not easy

there are some sources of energy which  which create a negative value because of   00:48:39 of of global climate change and climate working  and warming and you know all the negative   external effect of using some energy so we have  some to make some of the energy uh sources just   illegal you know we have to keep some of the oil  in the ground we have to stop looking for new oil   and gas so you know so the solution to some of  the of the energy questions we have is just to to   00:49:04 to make illegal you know the use of certain energy  and to to to move to other energy so that's part   of the answer now if we if we have done that  and we deal with with energy that don't have the   the negative this much bigger negative impact  on mankind than their positive productive impact   then you know redistribution of wealth must be  about all forms of wealth you know whether it's   00:49:32 rent or energy or financial assets or i  was seeing you know we we need to have a   permanent circulation of wealth and power so you  know that's the way i i view you know taxation of   wealth is will be a permanent you know progressive  tax on net wealth which in effect will will will   wipe out all the biggest uh wealth right away you  know say up to 90 percent tax per year for you   00:49:59 know for for billionaires but among you know there  will still be some people who want 100 000 dollars   some people who earn 1 million or 2 million but  there will be a permanent circulation of wealth   holdings within within this limited uh wealth  gap that that will still exist and this should   be for all forms of wealth you know whether it's  land or housing or whatever whatever the origin

i think climate change is going to put  a strong pressure in the sense that you know i   think when people see more and more catastrophic  climatic events you know i think attitudes toward   globalization and attitudes toward inequality in  general you know can change very quickly because   00:43:25 you know at some point i think people will  not find it funny at all to have all these   billionaires you know giving lessons using  their private jet doing your space tourism   et cetera you know at some point you know i think  nobody is going to find this funny at all and   there can be a very quick and and fast you know  complete change in attitude following this

they claim they have solved the  problem of multinational taxation but it's it's   a bit ridiculous how little they have done the  minimum tax rate of 15 percent is ridiculously   small and also it's only sort of sharing sort of  rich countries are sharing between themselves you   00:33:10 know the tax base that is currently in tax haven  but countries in the south in the global south   basically don't get anything and i think that's an  that's an issue that's something an area in which   the pressure of the chinese counter model in  the future maybe will contribute to induce   rich countries to to to to to to to have a bit  more you know inclusive attitude towards the   00:33:37 the south also well if they don't do  it i mean you know if they don't do it   in effect china will finance the investment and  the infrastructure investment that is needed in   africa and in south asia and and that's that's  you know this is at some point you know fully uh   western countries will realize that they have to  change something otherwise they will just lose any   any influence and any capacity to influence the  world

as long as the system of  of political finance and you know parties and   campaigns and media and think tank you know  are largely controlled by by large wealth   00:29:11 holders you know our collective ability to  change the distribution of wealth and the   you know through through taxation or that  consolation and or what you know whatever   the method is going to be limited so it will take  major political fights and in some cases you know   changing the political rules of the game and the  political institution to to to changes and and   you know the good news is that this has  always been like this or this has always   00:29:39 and and still sometimes you know it has worked  in the in the past but it has worked you know   i mentioned the french revolution you know of  course that's a huge popular mobilization uh also   in the 20th century i mentioned after world war  ii after world war one well let's be clear it's   only because there was a very powerful uh you know  labor movement a socialist movement and communist   counter model in the east which in the end put  pressure uh on the on the uh and you know and on   00:30:09 the in effect and the elite governing elite in in  in the west so that they they they had to accept   a number of decisions you know which which were  limited in their scope but still which transform   the economic and social system in in a very  substantial way as compared to the pre-world   war one and 19th century economic system but it's  only through this enormous political mobilization   00:30:34 and collective organization and you know it will  be the same in in the past

as you very well say the the  part of the increase in private wealth at the top   was really made um through you know privatization  of public assets increase in public debt   you know there's one one statistic which i which i  stress a lot which is that if you look at the net   wealth of the public sector uh you know the net  wealth of the government so government assets   00:27:25 minus government debt it used to be you know in  the 1970s net public wealth was you know between   20 30 percent of total national wealth so you know  net private wealth was bigger you know was like 70   or 80 percent but still net public waste was 20  30 percent in germany in the u.s in france in   britain in japan so that was you know substantial  part of everything there was to own in terms of   00:27:52 of marketable assets in society belong to the  public domain you know say around one quarter   or between one quarter and one third today so you  know three four decades later it is uh close to   zero or actually negative in in in the u.s or in  the uk in the sense that the public debt is bigger   than the public assets because many public assets  were privatized and and public debt increased   00:28:18 and you know in effect there was a transfer of  public wealth uh two to private wealth holders   and that's a you know that's a very important  evolution which you see the most extreme case of   course will be russia and post communist country  where you know you just transfer all the public   wealth and you make oligarchs out of nothing but  in fact we've all you know all countries have had   00:28:42 this kind of trajectories over the recent decades  so that's really an important part of the story   that i've been trying to tell so you know again  i i don't think we have any disagreement on this

i don't feel like we have any major  uh disagreement about you know everything you just   said michael uh let me say also regarding you know  my book capital in the 21st century you know it's   a book that has lots of limitations and and you  know i have on many issues you know i've tried to   00:26:31 to to to make progress since then so this  was written 10 years ago i wrote capital   and ideology much more recently which i  think addresses some of the shortcomings   but this is and still this book has also a  lot of limitations so you know i'm trying to   make progress all the time and i certainly  don't pretend that all the answers are in   you know one book and that being said i think you  know many many things that you've mentioned you   know again i fully agree with

think of the yellow vest movement in france a   couple of years ago which was a major tax level  to get rid of a very what i think was a very uh   an equal project to raise the carbon tax basically  on the poorest group in society and and there will   00:11:27 be you know to address uh climate uh challenges  but also you know all sorts of social and   developmental uh challenges uh we will we you know  societies will have to to to to find ways of

there   00:08:24 are two modern episodes which i find particularly  striking in terms of getting that back to zero   or at least you know concerning a big part of  that the french revolution of course is a very   important example so you know this was a time  when the basically the political system did not   manage to make pay those who should have paid  for the public spending which was the nobility   00:08:47 so there was a fight flight toward that because  people who should have paid the tax managed on   how to escape and the solution was the french  revolutions and the fiscal privileges of the   aristocracy the conservation of that through  partisan inflation partly through taxation   and that's sort of one modern episode the other  modern episode which i want to to refer to is of   00:09:12 course uh after world war ii uh you know after  you know in 1945 1950 most rich economies had   public debt which were enormous you know even even  bigger than than today and they made the choices   you know the political choice through you know  very conflictual social movement political fights   00:09:37 in the end the choice was made collectively not  to replace his debt so this happens in various   ways you know inflation in some cases but  but some countries like germany in particular   which is viewed today as as very conservative in  terms of economic doctrine and ideology and which   in many ways is very conservative we'll  see after the election in a few days but   you know it's still going to be quite conservative  probably in any case but in fact after world war   00:10:05 ii developed applied the solution to to  get rid of the debt of the past through   a monetary reform and through progressive taxation  of very high wealth holders in order to in effect   compensate the lower wealth holders for the uh for  the monetary reform and the the loss of links that   was implied by military reform so that in the  end i mean this is not job this was certainly   00:10:33 not a perfect system but as compared to all other  ways of getting rid of past that you know this was   certainly one of the one of the most equitable  or at least or the least unequitable way to   to address the problem and you know i think we  will have we will have other episodes like this

he regards   00:01:35 the idea of isolated individual as a myth  what interested david much more was a dialogue   he believed that it is only in dialogue in the  class of opinions where answers are formed and how   human consciousness is born we humans according to  david are the product of our social relationship   that's why it was so important for him  to be involved in a situation in which   00:02:03 people think and act collectively and david  grabber foundation will follow the same path

The second is the fact that, formany persons, the tasks of critical scholarship arenot without their charm; nearly every one findsin them a singular satisfaction in the long runand some have confined themselves to these taskswho might, strictly speaking, have aspired to higherthings.

en inequality is declining worldwide. It is true that inBritain and America income equality, which had beenimproving for most of the past two centuries (British aristocratswere six inches taller than the average in 1800; today they areless than two inches taller), has stalled since the 1970s.

Those who are born today are not individu-ally responsible for this burdensome heritage, but we are all respon-sible for the way in which we choose or fail to take it into account inanalyzing the world economic system, its injustices, and the needfor change.

Revisiting the “Great Levelling”: The limits of Piketty’s Capital and Ideology for understanding the rise of late 20th century inequality

The Age of Surveillance Capital is a striking and illuminating book. A fellow reader remarked to me that it reminded him of Thomas Piketty’s magnum opus, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, in that it opens one’s eyes to things we ought to have noticed, but hadn’t.

He reiterates his thesis that inequality self-corrects, thanks to the instability it engenders. Left on their own, market economies collapse, torn apart by the bill for guards to defend lenders' fortunes, the bill for interest payments that enrich lenders.

This fundamental truth (expressed in economic notation as r > g, or "return on capital is greater than economic growth") means that "meritocracy" is a lie: the richest people in a market economy aren't the people who do the best work, it's the people who started off rich.

Piketty concludes that no matter how fast an economy is growing – no matter how productive its makers are – that wealth grows faster, making the takers who financed growth even richer than the people whose work is propelling the economy.

Piketty, of course, is the bestselling French economist whose 2013 Capital in the 21st Century was an unlikely, 700+ page viral hit, describing with rare lucidity the macroeconomics that drive capitalism towards cruel and destabilizing inequality https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/