never has economics been more entertaining. It doesn't reject capital, but instead calls for it to be tamed. The film is a call to rewire capitalism to produce fairer outcomes for the majority of the population. Already today the very wealthy are able to avoid paying taxes - just like the aristocracy of the past - and many use their wealth to distort democracy for their benefit. It's a world where social mobility is low and inheritance is king. The film is based on the best-selling book of the same name by French economist Thomas Piketty, who's research suggests we're trending back to a world resembling 18th Century style capitalism - where a small number of mega-rich own everything and the rest of us are forced to 'rent' our lives and where the middle-class shirks back to be almost as poor as the poorest. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again.A memorising journey through time following the flow of wealth across centuries to give insight into where we might be heading.

The main driver of inequality-the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth-today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 'Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. Summary: What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy.

Piketty capital in the 21st century