Thomas Piketty Quotes

It is economic power that determines political power, and governments become the political functionaries of economic power.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous and secretive economic and political force in America.

It is a fact that around the world the elites of every country are making money.

Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard.

There are party leaders, big corporation, Wall Street. There are very wealthy individuals who kind of represent where the Democratic Party, the official Democratic Party was and to some extent still is.

It's this mingling of the economic and political elite which is really destroying our democracy.

The aristocracy most widely developed in America is that of wealth.

Ironically, if you look at Dianne Feinstein's profile and you look at my profile, I'm the 99 percent. Dianne Feinstein's the one percent. She appeals to one percent.

It doesn't matter who you vote for. It's still the same billionaires that run the world.

Money speaks, but it speaks with a male voice.

Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.

Whenever the very rich hold views at odds with those of the entire population, the federal government tends to do the rich's bidding.

Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.

People live with the illusion that we have a democratic system, but it's only the outward form of one. In reality we live in a plutocracy, a government of the rich.

Money creates a power relationship between the payer and the payee.

Rich people march on Washington every day.

The Negro today perhaps has more political power than ever before and he is worse off than ever before. It is not votes but dollars that count in this civilization.

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

The millionaires' Union

Who takes the blame: the leader who talks of poverty but lives in luxury, or the poor who choose a leader of that type?

He [Richard Nixon] is still the handmaiden of big business as he always has been.

The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, no worse, for a people than another.

Water does tend to flow up hill toward money and power.

The financial interests have captured the government institutions.

The struggle for power in our day lies not between Crown and people, or between a caste of nobles and a bourgeoisie, but between the classes who have property and the classes who have none.