Capital in the Twenty First Century

This was written by Vera, one of our student interns. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue.

The top 1% owns 70% of the world’s land. The wealthiest person in the world, Jeff Bezos,  made around $321 million dollars per day in 2020, while the average American makes 40,000 dollars yearly. How did this expansive wealth gap come to be, and why is it so extreme in the United States? The documentary, “Capital in the Twenty First Century”, based off of Thomas Piketty’s 2013 novel, attempts to answer these questions and a few more surrounding the root of the stark financial inequalities ever present today.  Starting with the Industrial Revolution, and making its way to the Reagan Era trickle down economics, “Capital” explores the history of the economic policies that have led us to where we are today. The film argues that if we don’t do something to bridge these gaps soon, we could reach division as extreme as 17th century Europe, in the times of Monarchs and Peasants. To understand how to fix things, we must understand what went wrong. Therefore, I highly recommend this film to anyone interested in exploring the roots of the vast inequalities between the uber rich and proletariat.