Quotes from Joseph E. Stiglitz

Democracy, we now know, is more than periodic elections in some countries, such elections have been used to legitimize essentially authoritarian regimes and deprive large parts of the citizenry of basic rights.

As we look out at the world, the United States not only has the highest level of inequality among the advanced industrial countries, but the level of its inequality is increasing in absolute terms relative to that in other countries.

We were not rich, but my parents had adjusted their lifestyle to their incomes—and in the end that is a big part of the battle.

The success of an economy can be assessed only by looking at what is happening to the living standards—broadly defined—of most citizens over a sustained period of time.

The powerful try to frame the discussion in a way that benefits their interests, realizing that, in a democracy, they cannot simply impose their rule on others. In one way or another, they have to "co-opt" the rest of society to advance their agenda. Here

Europe's reaction to the UK's referendum was dominated by the same harsh response that greeted Greece's June 2015 ballot-box rejection of its bailout package. Herman Van Rompuy, former European Council1 president, expressed a widespread feeling when he said that Cameron's decision to hold a referendum "was the worst policy decision in decades." In so saying, he revealed a deep antipathy toward democratic accountability.

If economic power in a country becomes too unevenly distributed, political consequences will follow. While we typically think of the rule of law as being designed to protect the weak against the strong, and ordinary citizens against the privileged, those with wealth will use their political power to shape the rule of law to provide a framework within which they can exploit others.9

Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

Some U.S. states spend as much on their prisons as they do on their universities.62 Such expenditures are not the hallmarks of a well-performing economy and society. Money that is spent on "security"—protecting lives and property—doesn't add to well-being; it simply prevents things from getting worse.

in today's America the proud claim of "justice for all" is being replaced by the more modest claim of "justice for those who can afford it.

Globalization is the field on which some of our major societal conflicts—including those over basic values—play out. Among the most important of those conflicts is that over the role of government and markets.

As those, for instance, in Ireland celebrate the return to growth (in 2015 it was Europe's fastest growing economy),1 they need to remember: every (or almost every) economy recovers from a downturn.

It's expensive to keep 2.3 million people in prison.

aunque la economía de goteo hacia abajo no funciona, la economía de goteo hacia arriba sí puede funcionar: todo el mundo —incluso los de arriba— podría beneficiarse dando más a los de abajo y a los de en medio.

As medical care has improved, life expectancy has increased—on average, in the United States, by some two years between 1990 and 2000. But for the poorest group of Americans there has been no progress, and for poor women life expectancy has actually been declining.

Today, China alone holds more than $1 trillion in public and private American IOUs. Cumulative borrowing from abroad during the six years of the Bush administration amounts to some $5 trillion. Most likely these creditors will not call in their loans—if they ever did, there would be a global financial crisis.

Most importantly, it became clear that the name "free trade agreement" was itself a matter of deceptive advertising: it was really a managed trade agreement, managed especially for special corporate interests, particularly in the United States.

The euro was born with great hopes. Reality has proven otherwise.

University of California professor Emmanuel Saez, Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, and Stefanie Stantcheva of the MIT Department of Economics, carefully taking into account the incentive effects of higher taxation and the societal benefits of reducing inequality, have estimated that the tax rate at the top should be around 70 percent—what it was before President Reagan started his campaign for the rich.68 But

If our economic system leads to so many people without jobs, or with jobs that do not pay a livable wage, dependent on the government for food, it means that our economic system has not worked in the way it should, and then government has to step in.

La desigualdad es una opción, no algo inevitable.

It is not particular judges who are bought but the laws themselves, through campaign contributions and lobbying, in what has come to be called "corruption, American-style." In some states judges are elected, and in those states there's an even closer connection between money and "justice." Monied interests use campaign contributions to get judges who are sympathetic to their causes.

Borrowers were told not to worry about paying the ever-mounting debt, because house prices would keep rising and they could refinance, taking out some of the capital gains to buy a car or pay for a vacation.

desempleo episódico —a veces masivo, como sucedió en la Gran Depresión— y una contaminación tan nociva en ciertos lugares que el aire era irrespirable fueron solo dos de las «pruebas» más obvias de que los mercados por sí solos no necesariamente funcionan bien.