Angus Deaton

I think inequality has gone past the point where it's helping us all get rich, and it's really becoming a serious threat. ”

The key is to somehow find a way of tackling rent-seeking, crony capitalism, and corruption - legal and illegal - and build fairer, more equal society without compromising innovation or entrepreneurship. ”

If someone thinks of something, some new innovation that benefits us all, and the market works properly, they get richly rewarded for that, and that's just terrific, and that creates inequality. ”

I'm in favor of inequality if it comes about from people making great innovations that make us all better off. And I think those people deserve to be rich. But the people who get rich by lobbying the Congress to give them special protections that come out of the hides of the workers seems to be a bad idea. ”

As recognized since ancient times, the coexistence of very rich and very poor leads to two possibilities, neither a happy one. The rich can rule alone, disenfranchising or even enslaving the poor, or the poor can rise up and confiscate the wealth of the rich. ”

I've always - and not always happily - considered myself an outsider. Certainly at Fettes. And then the Scots are always outsiders in England. They are always putting you in your place in one way or another, and there is this pretty rigid class hierarchy. ”

I don't think equality is intrinsically valuable, meaning in and of itself. I'm not against inequality... if Bill Gates gets another hundred million dollars, it's no skin off my nose. ”

Without properly functioning civil courts, there is no guarantee that innovative entrepreneurs can claim the rewards of their ideas. ”

High quality, open, transparent, and uncensored data are needed to support democracy. ”

The absence of state capacity - that is, of the services and protections that people in rich countries take for granted - is one of the major causes of poverty and deprivation around the world. ”