Thomas Piketty’s 'Capital in the Twenty First Century' Quotes

“One of the biggest advocates on behalf of Piketty is the American Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, who is responsible for a large part of the Piketty hype. To be sure, Piketty argues in such a neoclassical manner that Krugman, a so-called neo-Keynesian, is also forced to criticize him. Nonetheless, Krugman is full of praise for Piketty’s book, since he hopes that the striking development of inequality it documents must provoke a will to change things – towards more redistribution, ‘less market’, and ‘more state’. Piketty is thus supposed to have the same effect as John Maynard Keynes, whose writings after the Second World War considerably changed and put their stamp upon economic policy in Western industrial states. At least that is the usual narrative – which, however, is not true.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“With a wealth tax, Piketty seeks to rescue liberal ideology – everyone is the master of his or her own fate – from the results of the market. He wants to restore people’s belief in a just capitalism, or at least the hope that proverbially dies last. Piketty’s warning against inequality can be reduced to a single objection: if the belief in a society that justly rewards performance with legitimate differences in income disappears, then people will start to doubt whether everything is as it should be in capitalism and whether differences between poor and rich are ultimately just.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“The differences between pre-capitalist and capitalist forms of production can only be established in terms of how individuals relate to the means of production and the fruits of their labour. This in turn depends upon how the relation of individuals to the community is regulated; that is, which social form these relations assume.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Wealth is a form of property. Property, however, is not a universal principle according to which somebody has power of disposition over a thing (in pre-capitalist societies, namely, that was not the case in such a generalized sense). Rather, at a very general level, the property relation encompasses the appropriation of nature by human beings.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Despite all admiration for capitalism, however, Piketty shows no interest for the particularities of this economic form, and doesn’t ask himself what capitalism is. He also has no concept of capital, since he equates wealth and capital.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Critique of growth as such is foreign to Piketty. And he only criticizes inequality to the extent that it could damage growth and the legitimacy of capitalism. In this sense, he is both progressive and conservative: he wants to change something in order to maintain social relations as they are.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Thus Piketty is not only not comparable to Marx, as he himself tirelessly emphasizes, but also not even with Keynes, who at least consummated a break with the theoretical foundations of the neoclassical mainstream.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“It should be noted that contrary to Nair’s critique, Piketty does not disregard colonialism, but he does raise it from the perspective of the colonial powers. In this sense, Nair’s critique is justified. But Nair himself suppresses evidence that, for example, China in the meantime has become a colonial power in parts of Africa, which is why Piketty mentions China’s rise as an economic power.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Economic science is characterized by different ‘schools’, which do not only differ in terms of their fundamental theoretical assumptions, but also fundamentally contradict one another. It is therefore no wonder that economists with an orientation towards John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx raised criticisms: they pointed out that Piketty’s empirical research was important, but that he shared premises with the economic mainstream, the neoclassical school.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“That is how the critique of Doug Henwood, David Graeber and others can be understood. ‘The major frustration of the book is political’, writes Henwood, publisher of the American newsletter Left Business Observer and author of Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom.32 Piketty does not deal with the question of which political forces affect inequality and the wage ratio. Piketty ignores ‘the most obvious’ reason for the lower capital–income ratio, according to Graeber.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Piketty is quite clear about the fact that businesses and the wealthy can get around taxes. It is also clear to him that states that make laws also try to attract capital with the lowest possible taxes. The problem here is the tax competition between states. Piketty wants to oppose this with international cooperation, which would be possible primarily within the framework of the EU.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“Piketty’s look ahead into the future is therefore almost like a glance in its historical reflection. The composition of wealth might have changed – less land ownership, more financial and industrial capital – and the concentration of wealth is not as extreme as it was 100 years ago. Nonetheless, a trend highlights the devastating consequences of which Piketty warns against: the increase in importance of inheritance as a source of wealth, and the decrease in importance of ‘economic performance’ as a source of income.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“That which according to Piketty once allowed social mobility thanks to the welfare state, in contrast, is losing importance: economic performance and education. The latter has become devalued over the last few years: ‘a high school diploma now represents what a grade school certificate used to mean, a college degree what a high school diploma used to stand for, and so on.’35 At the same time, elite universities increased in importance. The educational system took on a selective function, rather than permitting social mobility independent of social background. This was the case not only in the US: ‘It would be wrong, however, to imagine that unequal access to higher education is a problem solely in the United States. It is one of the most important problems that social states everywhere must face in the twenty-first century. To date, no country has come up with a truly satisfactory response.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“also recognized by Marx with his theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall: on the one hand, returns on capital must decline (on the basis of a surplus of capital relative to possibilities for increasing productivity and hence returns on capital); on the other hand, on the basis of the growth in wealth, the power of rentiers has also increased, who maintain their claims upon an increasing share of economic growth (g), which in turn, however, can barely increase due to the blockade outlined above (surplus of capital).”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“In both countries, new policies were pursued from the end of the 1970s onward that spread to many other countries and which still persist today: the era of neoliberalism was inaugurated. In this context, Piketty speaks of a resurgence of capital and of the emergence of a class of super-rich.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“According to Piketty, increasingly inequality is not a coincidence, but rather inscribed into economic development. Piketty says this is the case not only under capitalism, but also in other economic forms. However, Piketty does not wish for this diagnosis of growing inequality to be understood as a call to class struggle: ‘To be clear, my purpose here is not to plead the case of workers against owners but rather to gain as clear as possible a view of reality.”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction

“More difficult than in the case of income is the data for income from wealth and the size of wealth. Whereas income is well documented by tax authorities, wealth is not.4 Piketty notes: ‘I trust the quantification of wealth for the year 1913 more than that of 2013. National income is recorded relatively well, but the distribution of income up to the highest tiers is another question.’5”
― Stephen Kaufmann, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction