Gabriel Zucman

I'm not saying it's the only problem, but it's where the trend has been the most powerful, the most

spectacular and also the most worrying for democracies.

Because you might say, OK, who cares about these 200 people?

Well, you know, you look at the media they own.

You look at their influence on politics and policies.

You know, look, wealth

For most people, it's a good thing, right?

For the middle class, it's owning a home, it's pensions for your whole day, it's safety in case shocks happen, you lose your job, it's great.

We like to encourage wealth accumulation by the middle class.

For the working class, they don't have access to property.

Not yet.

The working class, the bottom 50% of the distribution almost owns no wealth.

Their debts are about as high as their assets.

We'd like to encourage access.

We'd like the working class to have access to wealth.

So we want to encourage wealth accumulation in general.

Now, for the super rich, wealth is not accumulating billions for their old days.

For them, wealth is power.

It's the power to influence wealth.

the prevailing ideology, it's the power to influence markets by buying competitors, it's the power to influence politics by buying elections, by influencing policy making.