The Economics of Inequality Quotes

“The biggest problem with the current conception of international assistance is that it presupposes the existence of a fundamentally fair market balance in which each country is the legitimate owner of the wealth it has produced and accumulated in the past, in splendid isolation. But that is not at all how things happened. The enrichment of the West since the industrial revolution could not have occurred without the global division of labor and the frenetic exploitation of the planet’s natural and human resources.”
― Thomas Piketty, The Economics of Inequality

“Human capital inequality it totally inefficient because it is based entirely on a self-fulfilling prophecy. Economic efficiency requires that groups with identical capabilities make identical investments in human capital. Inequality due to discrimination is therefore profoundly perverse.”
― Thomas Piketty, The Economics of Inequality

“A substantial portion of the inequality between the rich and poor countries, and indeed of inequality in general, is due not the unequal distribution of the means of production but to unequal distribution of human capital.”
― Thomas Piketty, The Economics of Inequality