Angus Deaton Quotes

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

The prime culprit in causing contemporary social inequality seems to be merit.

Inequality is partly a marker of success.

The issue of wealth inequality is ... the great moral issue of our time.

There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

We cannot rebuild the American Dream here at home by catering to the voices of the privileged and powerful.

Economic inequality is not about food stamps and homeless shelters. It is about being a devotee of social justice and equality.

One thing that is clearly not maximized by free markets is equality. I am talking not about that pale substitute for equality known as equality of opportunity but about equality itself.

Income inequity has to be addressed.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

Capitalism and democracy are the opposite of each other. Capitalism is a system that guarantees that a few are going to do very well, and everybody else is going to serve the few. Democracy means everybody has a seat at the table. Everybody.

In a world of global dependencies with no corresponding global polity and few tools of global justice, the rich of the world are free to pursue their own interests while paying no attention to the rest.

And I am interested in the fact that class is very much a factor in America, even though it's not supposed to be.

Everything in America is so stratified by class now. We have the 93rd level of income inequality in the world. You're already seeing highway lanes that are for pay and ones that aren't.

I'm interested in illuminating the enormous disparity between vast poverty and the tiny upper class... This vast inequity is unfair by definition, and I am interested in illuminating that and, where possible, changing that.

If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for them and their children, that puts democracy at risk.

The messenger matters. When people of modest means complain about inequality, it usually gets written off as class warfare, but when billionaires complain, the problem is redefined.

An imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

The rich don’t want the poor to get ahead of them.

Why did the world ever become so unequal?

Our democracy may have an aristocracy of talent, as Jefferson said – which is fine – but we don’t want everyone else to be left out. Something like that seems to be happening, though.

No one should have more than five times the wealth of the poorest person.

Welfare for the wealthy simply can no longer be afforded.

Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the offspring of the unequal distribution of the wealth and the injustices in this world. The rich do not know hunger.

Economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege