Jon Cloke

“the upper classes instinctively abandoned idleness and invented meritocracy lest universal suffrage deprive them of everything they owned.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“the main purpose of the educational sector is not to prepare students to take up an occupation in some other sector of the economy. In all human societies, health and education have an intrinsic value: the ability to enjoy years of good health, like the ability to acquire knowledge and culture, is one of the fundamental purposes of civilization.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“Economic growth is quite simply incapable of satisfying this democratic and meritocratic hope, which must create specific institutions for the purpose and not rely solely on market forces or technological progress.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“None of the Asian countries that have moved closer to the developed countries of the West in recent years has benefited from large foreign investments, whether it be Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan and more recently China. In essence, all of these countries themselves financed the necessary investments in physical capital and, even more, in human capital, which the latest research holds to be the key to long-term growth.35 Conversely, countries owned by other countries, whether in the colonial period or in Africa today, have been less successful, most notably because they have tended to specialize in areas without much prospect of future development and because they have been subject to chronic political instability.”
― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century