Piketty (15) Middle Class

Piketty says that the big change in the twentieth century was the emergence of the middle class. In 1910, this group held very little wealth. Their share increased significantly during the century. This was achieved mainly through the ownership of residential housing and superannuation.

The overall importance of capital today, as noted, is not very different from what it was in the eightieth century. Only its form has changed: capital was once mainly land but is now industrial, financial, and real estate. We 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 quarter and a third of total wealth, and the wealthiest 10 percent now own only two-thirds of what there is to own rather than nine tenths (377).