George Saunders Quotes

The top end are still making bucket loads while maintaining the illusion of the American dream: that if you work hard enough, you can make a fortune. Meanwhile, the working and middle classes have been hollowed out of the system.

The truth is that I've always been fascinated with wealth in America. To me, it's been about the American dream and the corruption of that dream.

The economy is rigged in favor of those at the top.

This country isn't working for working people. It's working only for people at the top. That's not the American dream. That's the American nightmare.

The problem with this world is the unequal distribution of capitalism.

The economy is not governed with the bottom half in mind.

The biggest single challenge to America and our future is income inequality. We've got to fix it.

There’s just too much money in the hands of too few.

The wealth disparity between the lowest and the highest continues to expand, and that's inappropriate.

If the same family were always on the bottom, then you'd have big resentments. But if DuPonts go down and Pampered Chef up, [that's good]. That much churn makes people think the system is fairer. Buffett: We don't like churn now, but we liked it more 30-40 years ago.

It says anybody can make it, because we're all on a level playing field. But we're not on a level playing field. That 's precisely the point, and that's what the rich don't want to look at. They don't want to recognize that they're not producing wealth at all. They're hoarding wealth. That's different.

An elite group of less than a billion people now take more than 80 per cent of the world's wealth.

Today, the top one-tenth of 1% owns nearly as much wealth as the bottom 90%. The economic game is rigged, and this level of inequality is unsustainable. We need an economy that works for all, not just the powerful.

Success is somebody else's failure. Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty.

Wealth inequality has increased.

A nation will not survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little.

During the last two years the wealthiest 14 Americans saw their wealth increase by $157 billion. This is truly unbelievable. This $157 billion INCREASE in wealth among 14 individuals is more wealth that is owned, collectively, by 130 million Americans. This country does not survive morally, economically or politically when so few have so much, and so many have so little.

We live in a country where a small number of people have incredible wealth and power. America has more income and wealth inequality than any other major country.

Today, you have 20 percent of the world controlling 80 percent of the Gross Domestic Product; you've got a $30 trillion (US) world economy, and $24 trillion of it is in the developed countries... These inequities can't exist. So if you are talking about systemic breakdown, I think you have to look in terms of social breakdown.

By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then.

The economic system that the United States has is an evil empire. It's an economic system that's not fair, not just, and it's not democratic. And it will fall just like communism fell. The richest 1 percent now own 50 percent of the wealth. It didn't use to be that way. The average CEO 20 years ago made 20 times as much as the average employee. Now they make 212 times as much.

Many who have nothing opposed to the few who have everything, and as long as these disparities remain, as long as these distances remain between people and forces, I think we'll be in a perpetual state of upheaval.

Contrary to age-old prejudices, the wealth of the rich is not the cause of the poverty of the poor, but helps to alleviate that poverty.

America is among the countries the advance countries with the least equality of opportunity, which means that the - while I prospects of young American, a more dependent on the income and education's parents (ph) than another - other countries. So this notion of equal opportunity is sort of American dream is, is now a myth.

I think the gap between rich and poor is an extremely dangerous phenomenon and needs the immediate attention of the state.