Capital in the Twenty-First Century

by Thomas Piketty

To go back a century in time, to the decade 1900–1910: in all the countries of Europe, the concentration of capital was then much more extreme than it is today. It is important to bear in mind the orders of magnitude indicated in Table 7.2. In this period in France, Britain, and Sweden, as well as in all other countries for which we have data, the richest 10 percent owned virtually all of the nation’s wealth: the share owned by the upper decile reached 90 percent. The wealthiest 1 percent alone owned more than 50 percent of all wealth. The upper centile exceeded 60 percent in some especially inegalitarian countries, such as Britain. On the other hand, the middle 40 percent owned just over 5 percent of national wealth (between 5 and 10 percent depending on the country), which was scarcely more than the poorest 50 percent, who then as now owned less than 5 percent.