CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
How is it that I have $2300 in my bank account but Jeff Bezos has $23 billion (and more!) in his? Why do a gilded few post photos of designer handbags and Bali vacations while millions more carry six figures of debt for education. Capital in the Twenty-First Century (dir. Justin Pemberton, 2020) attempts to answer those questions. Pemberton has created a compelling documentary that showed a world (even before the onset of the COVID-19 plague) on a knife’s edge.
The documentary follows a didactical form: Thomas Piketty, the professor of economics whose tome Capital in the Twenty-First Century gives the self-same title to the film, and other academics discuss social and economic trends of the past 150 years. Between the one-on-one interviews images of modern decadence — the glittering malls of Dubai, the mega-yacht wharfs of Monaco etc. — underscore the scholars’ shared point: the unchecked accumulation of wealth produces serious negative consequences throughout an entire society.
Across the course of the film, we witness the origins of modern wealth. In the 17th and 18th centuries, innovations in productive machines enrich the old landowning aristocracy and the residents of cities alike. The tensions produced by disparity in wealth erupts in the 19th century (Piketty is French, so the film shows many shots of Versailles as he discusses the social conditions of pre-Revolutionary France). Closer to the present moment, discussion of World Wars I and II dominate Pemberton’s camera.
This period of conflict between 1914-1945, as Piketty and others reveal, brought total destruction to the societies of the world. The demands of reconstruction actually eased the burden of income inequality as states taxed wealth in earnest to deploy capital towards earnest ends in the reconstruction of cities and public services like education and healthcare. Unfortunately, this system since the 1970s has weakened as the wealthy classes have recaptured more value that was previously taxed.
Piketty and colleagues don’t have a rosy view looking forward. The contradiction in our modern economy - over the pittance returned to the laboring classes versus the immense profit generated for the owners of capital - as they note comes to a head in 2008. But the crisis then did not begin the reforms that would have decreased income inequality. Indeed, we find ourselves now faced with an even greater crisis: the economic conditions that resulted in 2008’s explosion that were never remedied at a fundamental level; now with a complete crash in demand, thanks to the pandemic, the crash has arrived.
It is impossible to watch this film without connecting it to the current crisis. Although the advent of the Great Corona comes after the release of the film, Capital in the Twenty-First Century exposes the conditions that preceded the calamity uprooting the United States. If we are to understand the origins of our present moment, it behooves us to understand the past that created conditions necessary for 2020.