Thomas Piketty: preference

Transcript context

…Of course. — Céline is a novelist of the interwar period in France who wrote this incredible novel, Voyage au bout de la nuit, where, basically, he tells us his experience during World War I. And then, after World War I, he goes to Africa. Then he goes to Detroit. Basically, he’s completely desperate about the world. He’s desperate about World War I, of course. He’s desperate about colonialism. He’s desperate about capitalism in Detroit. He’s completely nihilistic, but he has a lot of talent. I think Houellebecq is a nihilist. He has a lot of talent. I think he’s — but in terms of political views, to me, he’s just very nihilistic. I had the opportunity to debate with him and have a public discussion with him. He’s too nihilistic for me. I believe we can make the world better. The problem is with institutions, not with people. I think human beings are basically good, so to speak, and the institutions are not always at the level of the human beings — partly because it’s difficult, of course, to set up the right institution. But we can learn from history. I’m trying, with my work, to contribute to this collective process of learning from history on how to build better institutions to have a better world. Thomas, thank you very much. Again, everyone, the new book is A Brief History of Equality.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.