“The overall importance of capital today, as noted, is not very different from what it was in the eighteenth century. Only its form has changed: capital was once mainly land but is now industrial, financial, and real estate. We also know that the concentration of wealth remains high, although it is noticeably less extreme than it was a century ago. The poorest half of the population still owns nothing, but there is now a patrimonial middle class that owns between a middle and a third of total wealth, and the wealthiest ten percent now own only-two thirds of what there is to own rather than nine-tenths.”

— Thomas Piketty , book Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Source: Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), p. 377; As cited in: " Thomas Piketty Capital in the twenty first century‎ Part III http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.nl/2014/03/thomas-piketty-capital-in-twenty-first_30.html" on robertpaulwolff.blogspot.nl, 2014/03.

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Thomas Piketty 24

French economist 1971

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