Name: 托馬斯-皮凱蒂關於經濟不平等的觀點 (Thomas Piketty on Economic Inequality)
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THOMAS PIKETTY IS INTERVIEWED BY JUSTIN VOGT

SPEAKERS: JUSTIN VOGT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

[*] VOGT: Hello. I'm Justin Vogt, deputy managing

editor of Foreign Affairs, and this is Foreign Affairs Focus on Books. This is a new interview

series that we're launching today, and we could not be more pleased than to have as

our first guest, Thomas Piketty, professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics,

and the author of the highly anticipated new book "Capital in the 21st Century," which

is reviewed in the brand-new issue of Foreign Affairs.

Professor Piketty, thank you so much for joining us today.

VOGT: Now, you are best known for your work in demonstrating how in recent decades income

inequality has grown to levels, really, that have brought us to something like a new Gilded

Age, at least in the United States, where we now have the wealthiest 1 percent, or even

the wealthiest 0.1 percent, controlling a proportion of income that we haven't seen

in a century. At the same time, others contend that, well, you know, all boats have risen

And my question for you is, why should this kind of economic inequality be something that

we're worried about? Why should people care about this kind of economic inequality?

PIKETTY: I think inequality is fine, as long as it is in the common interest. The problem

is when it gets so extreme, when it becomes excessive. So the very difficult question,

of course, is, when is it that it becomes excessive and it becomes useless for society?

And let me say right away that, you know, I don't have, you know, a mathematical response

to this question, so what I'm trying to do in this book, you know, is to put a lot of

historical evidence into this debate so that, you know, we -- it's not that we're going

to stop fighting about inequality. You know, people have been fighting about inequality

forever, and this will continue. But at least we will know a little bit more what we are

So the primary objective of this book, which comes from an international research project

where we have been collecting historical data on income and wealth in over 20 countries

since the Industrial Revolution. You know, the primary objective is to try to present

this data, you know, in a consistent manner.

Then at the end of the book, you know, I draw some, you know, conclusion about the future,

but let me make perfectly clear that, you know, even if people disagree entirely about

my conclusion, this is fine. They will still, I think, find some interest in the history

of income and wealth that is presented in part one, two and three of the book.

And, you know, if -- to answer more precisely to your question, I think one of the historical

lesson of the book is that we don't need the kind of inequality that we had in the 19th

century in order to grow. So one of the lessons of the 20th century is that 19th century inequality

was not useful for growth. You know, it was destroyed by the world wars.

It was also changed by policies, progressive taxation, the welfare state, so that European

countries, in particular that are very extreme concentration of wealth until World War I,

had a much more equal distribution of property in the '50s, '60s, and this did not prevent

growth from happening. Quite the opposite. In fact, probably the reduction in wealth

inequality increased mobility, upward mobility. You know, the people in the middle class started

to accumulate wealth. And this was probably good for growth, as well.

So, you know, we should be worried about returning to the kind of extreme inequality that we

had in the 19th century. That doesn't mean that we want full equality, of course, but,

you know, we have to be careful about the fact that the trends, the pure economic forces

can get us, you know, further away from our ideals than we would like it to be. And, you

know, we -- you know, there's no natural force that prevents this from happening again.

VOGT: Your book is built around a simple, but profound insight into, one, economic relationship

and the -- you express this in terms of a formula, R is greater than G, in other words,

the rate of return enjoyed by investors can outstrip the overall growth in the economy,

and that this has the effect of creating the kind of inequality that you are concerned

Can you explain exactly what that means, what R is greater than G means, and why it's such

PIKETTY: OK, so R bigger than G was obvious to everyone, you know, in traditional societies.

Well, people would not formulate it this way, but it was obvious because growth was basically

equal to zero in traditional agrarian society. You know, population was not rising. Productivity

VOGT: Your new book is built around a simple, but profound observation about a relationship,

an economic relationship between the rate of growth and the rate of returns enjoyed

by investors. You express as R is greater than G. In other words, the rate of return

enjoyed by investors and capitalists often outstrips the overall growth in the economy.

Can you explain that relationship and also explain why it's such a powerful dynamic?

PIKETTY: OK. So R bigger than G, you know, today can seem paradoxical, but, in fact,

during most of human history, this was really obvious to everyone. Although people did not

formulate it this way, this was obvious because the growth rate was close to zero percent.

You know, population was more or less stagnant. Productivity was -- productivity growth was

very small, you know, less than 0.1 percent per year, so maybe -- you know, say zero percent.

And the rate of return to capital, of course, was positive, so typically, you know, landowners

in traditional societies will get an annual rent to their lands that was of the order

of 4 percent to 5 percent of the value of the land. So, you know, the traditional formula

was, you know, the price of land is the equivalent of 20 or 25 years of annual rent to the land.

And, you know, when you read novels of Jane Austen or, you know, whether -- you will see

that everybody at that time knew that, you know, if you want an annual return of 1,000

pounds, you need a capital of 20,000 pounds. And this was obvious to everyone.

And, in a way, this was even the foundation of society, because this is what allowed group

of landowners or owners of, you know, whatever assets there was to own, to sustain and to

be able to do other things and, you know, just care about their own survival.

VOGT: In other words, the rate of return had to be greater than the rate of growth in order

for there to be a sort of profit incentive.

PIKETTY: For -- well, not a profit incentive. A way to live. You know, they were living

off their rent, and this allowed them, you know, to do different other activities, you

know, maybe, you know, scientific activities. Also, nobility also was supposed to -- you

know, to defend the rest of the population in case of a military attack.

But, anyway, this was -- the foundation of society was that you have a group of owners

that will live off their property. And for this to happen, you need to have a rate of

return bigger than the growth rate. So when the growth rate was zero percent, this was

easy, and this was the foundation of all, you know, traditional wealth-based society.

Now, in the 19th century, with the Industrial Revolution, things changed a little bit, but

not that much, in the sense that growth rate went to 1 percent, 1.5 percent per year, with

the industrial revolution, which is a lot more than zero percent, because over the space

of a generation, over 30 years, it means you increase output by, say, 50 percent, you know,

which is a lot. When you do that over many generations, it has increased a lot our living