It's very nice to be here tonight.
Lepo je biti z vami nocoj.
So I've been working on the history of income and wealth distribution for the past 15 years, and one of the interesting lessons coming from this historical evidence is indeed that, in the long run, there is a tendency for the rate of return of capital to exceed the economy's growth rate, and this tends to lead to high concentration of wealth. Not infinite concentration of wealth, but the higher the gap between r and g, the higher the level of inequality of wealth towards which society tends to converge.
Zadnjih 15 let se ukvarjam z zgodovino prihodkov in z razporeditvijo bogastva in eden od zanimivih izsledkov na podlagi zgodovinskih dokazov je, da na dolgi rok stopnja donosa na kapital ponavadi preseže gospodarsko rast, kar vodi v visoko koncentracijo bogastva. Ne neskončno koncentracijo, ampak v večji prepad med r in g, višji ko je delež neenakosti premoženja, h kateremu se nagiba družba. O tej temeljni sili bom govoril danes,
So this is a key force that I'm going to talk about today, but let me say right away that this is not the only important force in the dynamics of income and wealth distribution, and there are many other forces that play an important role in the long-run dynamics of income and wealth distribution. Also there is a lot of data that still needs to be collected. We know a little bit more today than we used to know, but we still know too little, and certainly there are many different processes — economic, social, political — that need to be studied more. And so I'm going to focus today on this simple force, but that doesn't mean that other important forces do not exist.
a naj kar takoj povem, da to ni edina pomembna stvar v odnosu prihodka in razdelitve bogastva, še veliko drugih sil igra pomembno vlogo v dolgoročni dinamiki prihodkov in razporeditve premoženja. Treba je tudi še zbrati veliko podatkov. Danes vemo nekoliko več kot nekoč, a še vedno premalo, in obstaja veliko različnih procesov - ekonomskih, socialnih, političnih - ki jih je treba bolje preučiti. Danes bom razdelal to enostavno silo, a to ne pomeni, da druge ne obstajajo. Večina podatkov na to temo prihaja iz te baze,
So most of the data I'm going to present comes from this database that's available online: the World Top Incomes Database. So this is the largest existing historical database on inequality, and this comes from the effort of over 30 scholars from several dozen countries. So let me show you a couple of facts coming from this database, and then we'll return to r bigger than g. So fact number one is that there has been a big reversal in the ordering of income inequality between the United States and Europe over the past century. So back in 1900, 1910, income inequality was actually much higher in Europe than in the United States, whereas today, it is a lot higher in the United States. So let me be very clear: The main explanation for this is not r bigger than g. It has more to do with changing supply and demand for skill, the race between education and technology, globalization, probably more unequal access to skills in the U.S., where you have very good, very top universities but where the bottom part of the educational system is not as good, so very unequal access to skills, and also an unprecedented rise of top managerial compensation of the United States, which is difficult to account for just on the basis of education. So there is more going on here, but I'm not going to talk too much about this today, because I want to focus on wealth inequality.
ki je na voljo na spletu: "World Top Incomes". Je največja obstoječa baza podatkov o neenakosti in je rezultat truda preko 30 znanstvenikov iz več deset držav. Naj vam pokažem par dejstev iz te baze, potem pa se vrnemo na r, ki je višji kot g. Prvo dejstvo: prišlo je do velikega obrata v razmerju neenakosti prihodkov med ZDA in Evropo v zadnjem stoletju. Leta 1900 ali 1910 je bila neenakost prihodkov v Evropi mnogo višja kot v ZDA. Danes pa je veliko višja v ZDA. Naj pojasnim: Razlaga ni v tem, da je r večji kot g. Gre bolj za spremembo v ponudbi in povpraševanju za veščinami, za tekmo med izobrazbo in tehnologijo, globalizacijo, verjetno bolj neenak dostop do veščin v ZDA, kjer so zelo dobre, vrhunske univerze, a kjer dno izobraževalnega sistema ni tako dobro, zato je dostop do veščin neenak. Poleg tega pa prihaja do nezaslišane rasti plač najvišjih menedžerjev v ZDA, kar je težko upravičiti samo na podlagi izobrazbe. Še več pomembnih stvari je, a danes o njih ne bom toliko govoril, saj se hočem posvetiti neenakosti bogastva.
So let me just show you a very simple indicator about the income inequality part. So this is the share of total income going to the top 10 percent. So you can see that one century ago, it was between 45 and 50 percent in Europe and a little bit above 40 percent in the U.S., so there was more inequality in Europe. Then there was a sharp decline during the first half of the 20th century, and in the recent decade, you can see that the U.S. has become more unequal than Europe, and this is the first fact I just talked about. Now, the second fact is more about wealth inequality, and here the central fact is that wealth inequality is always a lot higher than income inequality, and also that wealth inequality, although it has also increased in recent decades, is still less extreme today than what it was a century ago, although the total quantity of wealth relative to income has now recovered from the very large shocks caused by World War I, the Great Depression, World War II.
Tole je enostaven indikator prihodkovne neenakosti. Tole je delež celotnega prihodka najbogatejših deset odstotkov. Vidite, da je bil pred sto leti med 45 in 50 odstotki v Evropi in malo nad 40 odstotki v ZDA. V Evropi je bila neenakost večja. Potem je prišel strm padec v prvi polovici 20. stoletja, v zadnjem desetletju pa lahko vidite, da so ZDA postale bolj neenake kot Evropa, to je prvo dejstvo. Drugo dejstvo je bolj povezano z neenakostjo premoženja in pri tem je bistveno, da je taka neenakost vedno precej večja od neenakosti prihodkov in da je neenakost premoženja, čeprav v zadnjih desetletjih narašča, še vedno ni tako skrajna kot pred stoletjem, čeprav si je celotno premoženje v primerjavi s prihodki opomoglo od velikih šokov prve svetovne vojne, velike depresije, druge svetovne vojne. Pokazal vam bom dva grafa, ki predstavljata drugo in tretje dejstvo.
So let me show you two graphs illustrating fact number two and fact number three. So first, if you look at the level of wealth inequality, this is the share of total wealth going to the top 10 percent of wealth holders, so you can see the same kind of reversal between the U.S. and Europe that we had before for income inequality. So wealth concentration was higher in Europe than in the U.S. a century ago, and now it is the opposite. But you can also show two things: First, the general level of wealth inequality is always higher than income inequality. So remember, for income inequality, the share going to the top 10 percent was between 30 and 50 percent of total income, whereas for wealth, the share is always between 60 and 90 percent. Okay, so that's fact number one, and that's very important for what follows. Wealth concentration is always a lot higher than income concentration.
Najprej, če pogledamo nivo neenakosti premoženja, tole je delež celotnega premoženja, ki ga ima najbogatejših 10 odstotkov lastnikov, vidite lahko podoben obrat med ZDA in Evropo kot prej pri neenakosti prihodkov. Koncentracija premoženja je bila pred 100 leti v Evropi večja kot v ZDA, zdaj pa je obratno. Pokazati pa se da še dve stvari: prvič, splošni nivo neenakosti premoženja je vedno višji od neenakosti prihodkov. Torej, pri neenakosti prihodkov je najbogatejših 10 odstotkov imelo 30 - 50 odstotkov vseh prihodkov, pri premoženju pa je delež vedno med 60 in 90 odstotki. To je prvo dejstvo, ki je pomembno za to, kar sledi. Koncentracija premoženja je vedno dosti večja od koncentracije prihodkov.
Fact number two is that the rise in wealth inequality in recent decades is still not enough to get us back to 1910. So the big difference today, wealth inequality is still very large, with 60, 70 percent of total wealth for the top 10, but the good news is that it's actually better than one century ago, where you had 90 percent in Europe going to the top 10. So today what you have is what I call the middle 40 percent, the people who are not in the top 10 and who are not in the bottom 50, and what you can view as the wealth middle class that owns 20 to 30 percent of total wealth, national wealth, whereas they used to be poor, a century ago, when there was basically no wealth middle class. So this is an important change, and it's interesting to see that wealth inequality has not fully recovered to pre-World War I levels, although the total quantity of wealth has recovered. Okay? So this is the total value of wealth relative to income, and you can see that in particular in Europe, we are almost back to the pre-World War I level. So there are really two different parts of the story here. One has to do with the total quantity of wealth that we accumulate, and there is nothing bad per se, of course, in accumulating a lot of wealth, and in particular if it is more diffuse and less concentrated. So what we really want to focus on is the long-run evolution of wealth inequality, and what's going to happen in the future. How can we account for the fact that until World War I, wealth inequality was so high and, if anything, was rising to even higher levels, and how can we think about the future?
Drugo dejstvo: rast neenakosti premoženja v zadnjih desetletjih še vedno ni blizu tisti iz 1910. Velika razlika danes je, v ogromni neenakosti premoženja, saj ima najbogatejših 10 odstotkov 60 - 70 odstotkov vsega, a dobra novica je, da smo pravzaprav na boljšem kot pred stoletjem, ko je 90 odstotkov bogastva v Evropi imelo le 10 odstotkov ljudi. Danes imamo t. i. srednjih 40 odstotkov, ljudi, ki niso v zgornjih 10 % in ne v spodnjih 50 odstotkih, to je torej srednji razred, ki si lasti 20 - 30 odstotkov skupnega premoženja, nacionalnega premoženja, medtem ko so bili pred sto leti revni, saj srednjega razreda ni bilo. Gre za pomembno spremembo in zanimivo je, da se neenakost premoženja ni docela vrnila na raven pred prvo svetovno vojno, čeprav smo skupno količino premoženja vrnili na to raven. Ok? To je skupna vrednost premoženja glede na prihodek in vidite lahko, da je predvsem Evropa skoraj na ravni pred prvo svetovno vojno. Gre pravzaprav za dve različni plati zgodbe. Ena se ukvarja s celotno količino premoženja, ki ga kopičimo, in samo po sebi ni nič slabega v kopičenju veliko premoženja, sploh, če je razpršeno in ni koncentrirano. Osredotočiti se želimo na dolgoročni razvoj neenakosti premoženja in na to, kaj se bo zgodilo v prihodnje. Kako lahko pojasnimo, da je bila neenakost premoženja do prve svetovne vojne tako velika in je še rasla in kaj to pomeni za prihodnost?
So let me come to some of the explanations and speculations about the future. Let me first say that probably the best model to explain why wealth is so much more concentrated than income is a dynamic, dynastic model where individuals have a long horizon and accumulate wealth for all sorts of reasons. If people were accumulating wealth only for life cycle reasons, you know, to be able to consume when they are old, then the level of wealth inequality should be more or less in line with the level of income inequality. But it will be very difficult to explain why you have so much more wealth inequality than income inequality with a pure life cycle model, so you need a story where people also care about wealth accumulation for other reasons. So typically, they want to transmit wealth to the next generation, to their children, or sometimes they want to accumulate wealth because of the prestige, the power that goes with wealth. So there must be other reasons for accumulating wealth than just life cycle to explain what we see in the data. Now, in a large class of dynamic models of wealth accumulation with such dynastic motive for accumulating wealth, you will have all sorts of random, multiplicative shocks. So for instance, some families have a very large number of children, so the wealth will be divided. Some families have fewer children. You also have shocks to rates of return. Some families make huge capital gains. Some made bad investments. So you will always have some mobility in the wealth process. Some people will move up, some people will move down. The important point is that, in any such model, for a given variance of such shocks, the equilibrium level of wealth inequality will be a steeply rising function of r minus g. And intuitively, the reason why the difference between the rate of return to wealth and the growth rate is important is that initial wealth inequalities will be amplified at a faster pace with a bigger r minus g. So take a simple example, with r equals five percent and g equals one percent, wealth holders only need to reinvest one fifth of their capital income to ensure that their wealth rises as fast as the size of the economy. So this makes it easier to build and perpetuate large fortunes because you can consume four fifths, assuming zero tax, and you can just reinvest one fifth. So of course some families will consume more than that, some will consume less, so there will be some mobility in the distribution, but on average, they only need to reinvest one fifth, so this allows high wealth inequalities to be sustained.
Ponudil vam bom nekaj razlag in napovedi za prihodnost. Najprej naj povem, da je najbrž najboljša razlaga mnogo večje koncentracije premoženja kot prihodkov v dinamičnem, dinastičnem modelu, kjer posamezniki na dolgi rok kopičijo premoženje iz različnih razlogov. Če bi ga kopičili samo iz cikličnih razlogov, da bi lahko trošili, ko ostarijo, potem bi neenakost premoženja šla bolj ali manj vzporedno z nivojem neenakosti prihodkov. A težko bo le s cikličnim modelom razložiti, zakaj toliko večja neenakost premoženja od neenakosti prihodkov, zato potrebujemo zgodbo, v kateri je kopičenje premoženja za ljudi pomembno iz drugih razlogov. Tipično je, da želijo premoženje prenesti na novo generacijo, na otroke, ali pa ga želijo kopičiti zaradi prestiža in moči, ki spremlja imetje. Za kopičenje premoženja morajo torej obstajati razlogi poleg cikličnega, da bi razložili te podatke. V velikem delu dinamičnih modelov kopičenja premoženja s tako dinastičnim motivom pride do različnih naključnih multiplikativnih šokov. Nekatere družine imajo denimo veliko otrok, zato se premoženje deli. Nekatere jih imajo manj. So tudi šoki stopnje donosa. Nekatere družine imajo ogromen dobiček od kapitala. Druge slabo vlagajo. Vedno bo obstajala določena mobilnost v toku premoženja. Nekateri se vzpnejo, drugi padejo. Pomembno je, da bo v vsakem modelu pri dani varianci šokov ravnotežna raven neenakosti premoženja strmo naraščajoča funkcija r minus g. Razlog za to, da je razlika med stopnjo donosa na premoženje in stopnjo rasti pomembna, je intuitivno v tem, da se začetna neenakost premoženja veča hitreje, če je r minus g večji. Enostaven primer: če je r 5% in g znaša 1%, morajo lastniki vložiti le petino kapitala, da bi zagotovili rast premoženja v enaki meri, kot raste gospodarstvo. Tako je lažje krepiti ogromno bogastvo, saj lahko potrošite štiri petine pri ničelnem obdavčenju, ter ponovno vložite petino. Nekatere družine seveda trošijo več, druge manj, zato obstaja določena mobilnost v distribuciji a povprečno morajo naložiti le petino, kar omogoča ohranjanje velikih neenakost premoženja.
Now, you should not be surprised by the statement that r can be bigger than g forever, because, in fact, this is what happened during most of the history of mankind. And this was in a way very obvious to everybody for a simple reason, which is that growth was close to zero percent during most of the history of mankind. Growth was maybe 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 percent, but very slow growth of population and output per capita, whereas the rate of return on capital of course was not zero percent. It was, for land assets, which was the traditional form of assets in preindustrial societies, it was typically five percent. Any reader of Jane Austen would know that. If you want an annual income of 1,000 pounds, you should have a capital value of 20,000 pounds so that five percent of 20,000 is 1,000. And in a way, this was the very foundation of society, because r bigger than g was what allowed holders of wealth and assets to live off their capital income and to do something else in life than just to care about their own survival.
Ne bodite presenečeni, če rečem, da je r lahko vedno večji od g, saj je bilo tako večino zgodovine človeštva. To je bilo na nek način vsem jasno, in sicer zato, ker je bila rast blizu nič odstotkov večino zgodovine človeštva. Rast je bila morda 0.1, 0.2 ali 0.3 odstotka, ob zelo počasni rasti prebivalstva in proizvodnje per capita, medtem ko stopnja kapitalskega donosa seveda ni bila ničelna. Za nepremičnine, kar je tradicionalna oblika lastnine v predindustrijskih družbah, je bila tipično petodstotna. Vsak bralec Jane Austen to ve. Če želite letni prihodek 1000 funtov, morate imeti kapital v višini 20.000 funtov, saj je 5% od 20000 prav 1000. Na nek način je bil to temelj družbe, saj je r višji od g omogočal lastnikom premoženja, da so živeli od dobička na kapital ter se ukvarjali z drugimi stvarmi kot je boj za golo preživetje.
Now, one important conclusion of my historical research is that modern industrial growth did not change this basic fact as much as one might have expected. Of course, the growth rate following the Industrial Revolution rose, typically from zero to one to two percent, but at the same time, the rate of return to capital also rose so that the gap between the two did not really change. So during the 20th century, you had a very unique combination of events. First, a very low rate of return due to the 1914 and 1945 war shocks, destruction of wealth, inflation, bankruptcy during the Great Depression, and all of this reduced the private rate of return to wealth to unusually low levels between 1914 and 1945. And then, in the postwar period, you had unusually high growth rate, partly due to the reconstruction. You know, in Germany, in France, in Japan, you had five percent growth rate between 1950 and 1980 largely due to reconstruction, and also due to very large demographic growth, the Baby Boom Cohort effect. Now, apparently that's not going to last for very long, or at least the population growth is supposed to decline in the future, and the best projections we have is that the long-run growth is going to be closer to one to two percent rather than four to five percent. So if you look at this, these are the best estimates we have of world GDP growth and rate of return on capital, average rates of return on capital, so you can see that during most of the history of mankind, the growth rate was very small, much lower than the rate of return, and then during the 20th century, it is really the population growth, very high in the postwar period, and the reconstruction process that brought growth to a smaller gap with the rate of return. Here I use the United Nations population projections, so of course they are uncertain. It could be that we all start having a lot of children in the future, and the growth rates are going to be higher, but from now on, these are the best projections we have, and this will make global growth decline and the gap between the rate of return go up.
Pomemben zaključek moje zgodovinske raziskave je, da več gospodarske rasti ni spremenilo tega temeljnega dejstva toliko, kot bi pričakovali. Seveda je stopnja rasti po industrijski revoluciji poskočila, od nič do enega, dveh odstotkov, a hkrati je zrasla tudi stopnja donosa na kapital in razlika med njima se ni spremenila. V 20. stoletju smo imeli edinstven sklop dogodkov. Prvič, zelo nizko stopnjo donosa zaradi šokov vojn leta 1914 in 1945, uničenja premoženja, inflacije, bankrota med veliko depresijo, vse to je spustilo zasebno stopnjo donosa na premoženje na nenavadno nizko raven med letoma 1914 in 1945. V povojnem obdobju je bila stopnja rasti nenavadno visoka, deloma zaradi obnove. Veste, v Nemčiji, Franciji, na Japonskem je bila petodstotna rast med letoma 1950 in 1980 predvsem zaradi obnove pa tudi zaradi velike demografske rasti, zaradi baby boom učinka. To ne bo dolgo trajalo, vsaj rast prebivalstva naj bi v prihodnje upadla, in najboljše projekcije kažejo, da bo dolgoročna rast bližje enemu do dvema odstotkoma in ne štirim ali petim. Poglejte tole, to so najboljše ocene svetovne rasti BDP-ja ter stopnje donosa na kapital, povprečne stopnje donosa, in vidite lahko, da je bila večino zgodovine stopnja rasti zelo nizka, mnogo nižja od stopnje donosa, v 20. stoletju pa sta rast prebivalstva, visoka predvsem v povojnem obdobju, ter proces obnove pripeljala rast bližje stopnji donosa. To so OZN-ove projekcije prebivalstva, seveda so negotove. Morda bomo v prihodnje vsi imeli veliko otrok in stopnje rasti bodo višje, a zaenkrat so to najboljše projekcije, in tako bo svetovna rast upadla in razlika s stopnjo donosa bo zrasla.
Now, the other unusual event during the 20th century was, as I said, destruction, taxation of capital, so this is the pre-tax rate of return. This is the after-tax rate of return, and after destruction, and this is what brought the average rate of return after tax, after destruction, below the growth rate during a long time period. But without the destruction, without the taxation, this would not have happened. So let me say that the balance between returns on capital and growth depends on many different factors that are very difficult to predict: technology and the development of capital-intensive techniques. So right now, the most capital-intensive sectors in the economy are the real estate sector, housing, the energy sector, but it could be in the future that we have a lot more robots in a number of sectors and that this would be a bigger share of the total capital stock that it is today. Well, we are very far from this, and from now, what's going on in the real estate sector, the energy sector, is much more important for the total capital stock and capital share.
Drug nenavaden dogodek v 20. stoletju je bilo, kot rečeno, uničenje, obdavčenje kapitala, to je stopnja donosa pred obdavčitvijo. Taka je po obdavčitvi in po uničenju, kar je za dolgo časa prineslo povprečno stopnjo donosa po obdavčitvi, po uničenju, pod raven rasti. A pred uničenjem, brez davka, se to ne bi zgodilo. Ravnotežje med donosom na kapital in rastjo je odvisno od številnih faktorjev, ki jih je težko predvideti: tehnologija in razvoj kapitalsko intenzivnih tehnik. Trenutno so najbolj kapitalsko intenzivni sektorji gospodarstva nepremičninski, stanovanjski, energetski, a v prihodnje bomo morda v številnih sektorjih imeli veliko več robotov in bo v tem večji delež celotnih zalog kapitala kot danes. Še daleč od tega smo, kar se sedaj dogaja pri nepremičninah, energetiki, je veliko bolj pomembno kot celotne zaloge kapitala in kapitalski deleži.
The other important issue is that there are scale effects in portfolio management, together with financial complexity, financial deregulation, that make it easier to get higher rates of return for a large portfolio, and this seems to be particularly strong for billionaires, large capital endowments. Just to give you one example, this comes from the Forbes billionaire rankings over the 1987-2013 period, and you can see the very top wealth holders have been going up at six, seven percent per year in real terms above inflation, whereas average income in the world, average wealth in the world, have increased at only two percent per year. And you find the same for large university endowments — the bigger the initial endowments, the bigger the rate of return.
Druga pomembna stvar je, da obstajajo učinki obsega pri upravljanju portfeljev ter finančna kompleksnost, finančna deregulacija, kar omogoča višje deleže donosa velikim portfeljem in je posebej pomembno za milijarderje, za velike donacije. Samo za primer, tole je s Forbesovega seznama milijarderjev v obdobju 1987-2013 in vidite, da so najbogatejši rasli po šest, sedem odstotkov letno, v realnem smislu nad inflacijo, medtem ko je povprečni globalni prihodek, povprečno svetovno premoženje, raslo samo za dva odstotka letno. Enako velja za velike univerzitetne donacije, čim večja je začetna donacija, tem večji je delež donosa.
Now, what could be done? The first thing is that I think we need more financial transparency. We know too little about global wealth dynamics, so we need international transmission of bank information. We need a global registry of financial assets, more coordination on wealth taxation, and even wealth tax with a small tax rate will be a way to produce information so that then we can adapt our policies to whatever we observe. And to some extent, the fight against tax havens and automatic transmission of information is pushing us in this direction. Now, there are other ways to redistribute wealth, which it can be tempting to use. Inflation: it's much easier to print money than to write a tax code, so that's very tempting, but sometimes you don't know what you do with the money. This is a problem. Expropriation is very tempting. Just when you feel some people get too wealthy, you just expropriate them. But this is not a very efficient way to organize a regulation of wealth dynamics. So war is an even less efficient way, so I tend to prefer progressive taxation, but of course, history — (Laughter) — history will invent its own best ways, and it will probably involve a combination of all of these.
Kaj lahko storimo? Najprej potrebujemo več finančne transparentnosti. Premalo vemo o globalnih tokovih premoženja, zato potrebujemo mednarodni prenos bančnih informacij. Potrebujemo globalni register finančne lastnine, bolj koordinirano obdavčitev premoženja, celo nizek davek na premoženje bo podal informacije, da lahko politike prilagodimo opažanjem. Do neke mere nas boj proti davčnim oazam ter avtomatski prenos informacij silita v to smer. Tudi drugi načini prerazdelitve premoženja so privlačni. Inflacija: lažje je tiskati denar kot pisati davčne zakone, zato je privlačno, a včasih ne vemo, kaj bi z denarjem. V tem je problem. Razlastitev je privlačna. Ko se zdi, da so nekateri prebogati, jih enostavno razlastite. A to ni zelo učinkovit način regulacije toka premoženja. Vojna je še manj učinkovita, zato imam raje progresivno obdavčitev, a seveda bo zgodovina (smeh) izumila svoje načine, ki bodo verjetno vsebovali kombinacijo vsega tega.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(aplavz)
Bruno Giussani: Thomas Piketty. Thank you.
Bruno Giussani: Hvala, Thomas Piketty.
Thomas, I want to ask you two or three questions, because it's impressive how you're in command of your data, of course, but basically what you suggest is growing wealth concentration is kind of a natural tendency of capitalism, and if we leave it to its own devices, it may threaten the system itself, so you're suggesting that we need to act to implement policies that redistribute wealth, including the ones we just saw: progressive taxation, etc. In the current political context, how realistic are those? How likely do you think that it is that they will be implemented?
Thomas, par stvari bi vas vprašal, odlično obvladate svoje podatke, seveda, a vaša teza je, da je rastoča koncentracija premoženja nekako naravni trend kapitalizma, in če temu pustimo prosto pot, lahko ogrozi sam sistem, zato pravite, da moramo uresničiti politike, ki prerazdelijo premoženje, vključno z progresivno obdavčitvijo, itd. Kako realne so te v trenutnem političnem stanju? Kako verjetno je, da jih bomo izvedli?
Thomas Piketty: Well, you know, I think if you look back through time, the history of income, wealth and taxation is full of surprise. So I am not terribly impressed by those who know in advance what will or will not happen. I think one century ago, many people would have said that progressive income taxation would never happen and then it happened. And even five years ago, many people would have said that bank secrecy will be with us forever in Switzerland, that Switzerland was too powerful for the rest of the world, and then suddenly it took a few U.S. sanctions against Swiss banks for a big change to happen, and now we are moving toward more financial transparency. So I think it's not that difficult to better coordinate politically. We are going to have a treaty with half of the world GDP around the table with the U.S. and the European Union, so if half of the world GDP is not enough to make progress on financial transparency and minimal tax for multinational corporate profits, what does it take? So I think these are not technical difficulties. I think we can make progress if we have a more pragmatic approach to these questions and we have the proper sanctions on those who benefit from financial opacity.
T. Piketty: Mislim, da če pogledate nazaj skozi čas, je zgodovina prihodkov, premoženja in obdavčitve polna presenečenj. Zato nisem vznesen nad tistimi, ki vnaprej vedo, kaj se bo ali ne bo zgodilo. Pred sto leti so mnogi trdili, da progresivne obdavčitve ne bo, pa je. Še pred petimi leti so mnogi trdili, da je tajnost švicarskih bank večna, da je Švica premočna za preostali svet, pa je bilo za spremembo treba le par sankcij ZDA proti švicarskim bankam, da zdaj gremo proti večji finančni transparentnosti. Zato mislim, da ni tako težko doseči boljše politične koordinacije. Nastala bo pogodba s sodelovanjem polovice svetovnega BDP-ja z ZDA in EU in če polovica BDP-ja ni dovolj za napredek finančne transparentnosti in minimalni davek na dobiček multinacionalk, kaj potem je? Mislim, da to niso tehnične težave. Mislim, da lahko napredujemo, če smo bolj pragmatični do teh stvari, če imamo prave sankcije za tiste, ki izkoriščajo finančne sence.
BG: One of the arguments against your point of view is that economic inequality is not only a feature of capitalism but is actually one of its engines. So we take measures to lower inequality, and at the same time we lower growth, potentially. What do you answer to that?
BG: Eden od protiargumentov je, da ekonomska neenakost ni le del kapitalizma, ampak je eden njegovih motorjev. Če z ukrepi manjšamo neenakost in hkrati nižamo rast, denimo. Kaj pravite na to?
TP: Yeah, I think inequality is not a problem per se. I think inequality up to a point can actually be useful for innovation and growth. The problem is, it's a question of degree. When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility. And for instance, the kind of wealth concentrations that we had in the 19th century and pretty much until World War I in every European country was, I think, not useful for growth. This was destroyed by a combination of tragic events and policy changes, and this did not prevent growth from happening. And also, extreme inequality can be bad for our democratic institutions if it creates very unequal access to political voice, and the influence of private money in U.S. politics, I think, is a matter of concern right now. So we don't want to return to that kind of extreme, pre-World War I inequality. Having a decent share of the national wealth for the middle class is not bad for growth. It is actually useful both for equity and efficiency reasons.
TP: Mislim, da neenakost sama po sebi ni problem. Do neke mere lahko pomaga inovacijam in rasti. Težava je v stopnji. Ko neenakost postane skrajna, potem ne pripomore k rasti, postane slaba celo zato, ker spodbuja ohranjanje neenakosti skozi čas ter nizko mobilnost. Denimo, koncentracije premoženja, kakršne smo imeli v 19. stoletju in vse do 1. svetovne vojne v vseh evropskih državah, niso pripomogle k rasti. Uničila jih je kombinacija tragičnih dogodkov in političnih sprememb, kar ni preprečilo rasti. Skrajna neenakost lahko škoduje tudi demokratičnim institucijam, če ustvarja zelo neenak dostop do političnega glasu, in vpliv zasebnega denarja v politiki ZDA, je, menim, trenutno skrb vzbujajoč. Ne želimo se vrniti v take skrajnosti, v neenakost pred 1. svetovno vojno. Spodoben delež nacionalnega bogastva v rokah srednjega razreda ni slaba stvar. Pravzaprav koristi tako enakosti kot učinkovitosti.
BG: I said at the beginning that your book has been criticized. Some of your data has been criticized. Some of your choice of data sets has been criticized. You have been accused of cherry-picking data to make your case. What do you answer to that?
BG: Na začetku sem omenil, da so vašo knjigo kritizirali. Nekatere podatke so kritizirali. Tudi določen izbor podatkov. Obtožili so vas jemanja podatkov, ki so podprli vašo tezo. Kaj pravite na to?
TP: Well, I answer that I am very happy that this book is stimulating debate. This is part of what it is intended for. Look, the reason why I put all the data online with all of the detailed computation is so that we can have an open and transparent debate about this. So I have responded point by point to every concern. Let me say that if I was to rewrite the book today, I would actually conclude that the rise in wealth inequality, particularly in the United States, has been actually higher than what I report in my book. There is a recent study by Saez and Zucman showing, with new data which I didn't have at the time of the book, that wealth concentration in the U.S. has risen even more than what I report. And there will be other data in the future. Some of it will go in different directions. Look, we put online almost every week new, updated series on the World Top Income Database and we will keep doing so in the future, in particular in emerging countries, and I welcome all of those who want to contribute to this data collection process. In fact, I certainly agree that there is not enough transparency about wealth dynamics, and a good way to have better data would be to have a wealth tax with a small tax rate to begin with so that we can all agree about this important evolution and adapt our policies to whatever we observe. So taxation is a source of knowledge, and that's what we need the most right now.
TP: Zelo sem vesel, da ta knjiga sproža razpravo. To je eden njenih namenov. Razlog, da sem vse podatke objavil skupaj z natančnimi izračuni je v tem, da omogočim odprto razpravo. Na vsak dvom sem jasno odgovoril. Če bi moral knjigo še enkrat napisati, bi pravzaprav sklenil, da je rast neenakosti premoženja, sploh v ZDA, višja od te, ki je v knjigi. Nedavna študija Saeza in Zucmana z novimi podatki, ki jih tedaj nisem imel, kaže, da je koncentracija premoženja v ZDA zrasla še bolj, kot sem poročal. Še novi podatki bodo prišli. Nekateri bodo kazali drugače. Skoraj tedensko na spletu objavimo posodobljeno serijo baze podatkov World Top Income in to bomo nadaljevali, sploh v hitro rastočih državah, in veselim se vseh, ki želijo prispevati k temu zbiranju podatkov. Seveda se strinjam, da ni dovolj preglednosti o dinamiki premoženja in dober način za boljše podatke bi bil skozi davek na premoženje z nizko začetno stopnjo, da bi se uskladili o tem pomembnem razvoju ter prilagodili politike opažanjem. Davki so vir znanja, to pa zdaj najbolj potrebujemo.
BG: Thomas Piketty, merci beaucoup.
BG: Thomas Piketty, najlepša hvala.
Thank you. TP: Thank you. (Applause)
Hvala vam. TP: Hvala (aplavz)