Tom Steyer Quotes

With less competition to fear, companies are emboldened to raise their mark-ups and profits. That lifts share prices and thus the wealth of already wealthy shareholders.

The failure of Socialism since 1945 is that whilst encouraging us all, the creators of wealth, to produce less through strikes, it has caused us all to demand a higher level of our own product.

If capital and labor ever do get together it's good night for the rest of us.

Capitalism is very unfair but it is the only system that works.

Those who control the wealth of this society have an influence over political life far in excess of their number.

Americans have historically been more willing than Europeans to tolerate high inequality levels if accompanied by strong economic growth and a healthy middle class.

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.

There is a serious tendency towards capitalism among the well-to-do peasants.

... our economy is gradually becoming a zero-sum game between financial wealth holders and the rest of America.

Controlling capitalism has proved far more difficult than controlling anything else, because capitalism is based on the control of the many by the few—the reverse of the conventional definition of political democracy.

In the developed world, income inequality within the country is the most important determinant of health standards and life expectancy.

Individual capitalists are in charge of a wide range of decisions which, because of their consequences for the general welfare of society, are in fact public policy decisions taken by private individuals.

The distribution of wealth, therefore, depends on the laws and customs of society.

… perceptions of poverty have gone up because there’s been rising inequality.

The superrich have grown worldwide. But America is at the head of the pack.

Class warfare is being waged in America, and the wrong side is winning.

One can be in business and pursue bad profit. That is, by practicing cronyism—rigging the system to undermine competition, innovation and opportunity, making others worse off. Good profit should lead you to improve your ability to help others improve their lives. But that’s not how many businesses act today.

Rising inequality has changed family dynamics for all socioeconomic groups.

No matter how we name and dissect inequality, we must keep explaining the larger downside of such concentrated extreme wealth.

It's almost impossible to have security at the expense of insecurity of others. It's almost impossible to have prosperity when there is a huge problem of poverty and backwardness all over the world.

Labour ministers often look puzzled when reports show that Britain has one of the lowest levels of social mobility in the developed world. They just don't get it. They see poverty, inequality, fairness, as all about income. For the past 12 years, they have relied on tax credits to solve this. But tax credits do not solve poverty: they mask it.

The United States is the richest and also the most unequal country in the world.

If you want to understand why something is happening in America just follow the money.

Capitalism and people who control the market have a large hand in everything. It doesn't have anything to do with figuring out what the crowd wants to hear. It has to do with the media deciding what they think people want to hear.

Class warfare has never created a job.