Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple reason: in a democracy, the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities derive from rational and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies. Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well. Thomas Piketty
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. <span style="margin:15px;... - Neil Gaiman
  2. Keep your best wishes, close to your heart and watch what happens - Tony Deliso
  3. Happiness is part of who we are. Joy is the feeling - Tony Deliso
  4. Don't blow off another's candle for it won't make yours shine brighter. - Jaachynma N.E. Agu
  5. Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the... - Alexandre Dumas
More Quotes By Thomas Piketty
  1. All told, over the period 1932-1980, nearly half a century, the top federal income tax rate in the United States averaged 81 percent.
  2. Income from labor [in the United States] is about as unequally distributed as has ever been observed anywhere.
  3. Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview, or at any rate a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents. This belief and this hope play...
  4. Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.
  5. Protectionism does not produce wealth, and free trade and economic openness are ultimately in everyone’s interest
Related Topics