'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'

Capital in the Twenty-First Century is exactly as broad and sweeping as its title suggests. The documentary, an adaptation of economist Thomas Piketty’s 2014 best-selling book of the same name, interrogates economic history for clues about what the future might hold.

Piketty’s book was an unlikely best-seller. It was translated from French. The original hardcover is almost 700 pages long. It features tables of historical data and methodological information. It is, by all accounts, a text meant for economists, not pop economics destined for some sort of Gladwellian moment stacked near the entrance of every Barnes & Noble.

Given the density of the source material, it should be no surprise that director Justin Pemberton doesn’t bother trying to take viewers through Piketty’s central thesis in a technical way. I’m not even sure this would qualify as a Cliffs Notes version. (I have not read the book, but did check in with a friend who has and my presumption seems to be on steady ground.) What it seems to do instead is take Piketty’s core findings and challenge viewers with a series of open-ended questions.

This is all packaged in a format that will be very familiar and comforting to regular documentary viewers. It bounces between news clips from the past four decades, pop culture references like the Oliver Stone film Wall Street, and single-camera interviews with big names from the world of economics and political science. Piketty is featured prominently as you might expect. So too are the likes of Ian Bremmer and Francis Fukuyama. These aren’t exactly household names, but if you’re the type of person whose ears would perk up at a documentary based on Piketty’s work, then they are likely to be familiar to you.

So how do Pemberton and by extension Piketty pose their challenge? In short, that this can all go one of two ways. Wealth is concentrated among an increasingly small pool of individuals. This has accelerated since the end of the Cold War, which has fueled the ascent of capitalism in its current form. Before you worry that this is a socialist screed, understand that the film explicitly calls out the “fraud of the Communist state” in its earliest moments and pairs that with visuals of bare grocery store shelves - images that hit a little too close to home all of a sudden.

If history is any guide, this level of concentration is dangerous. When conditions are like they are now, great upheaval typically follows. On one end of the spectrum is the French Revolution. On the other is the aftermath of the World Wars. In this sense, Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a Rorschach test. It presents the problem very clearly. How you might propose solving it or just predicting how it all will be resolved will vary from individual to individual. Its goal is simply to define the problem and ground it in the natural cycles of history.

In that context, it does a perfectly fine job, using familiar faces and expert voices in an infotainment format to get you from point A to B. As a film specifically, it’s nothing special. As a document that provokes thought, it has urgency, and the ongoing pandemic adds an extra dose.

In a now-prescient seeming moment, Pemberton and Piketty make the point that the World Wars were a great leveler. Capital was destroyed in vast quantities. People, with and without capital, put their lives on the line together. The rebuilding process was broadly inclusive as a result. Many people had their lives improved post-war. This isn’t a revelation, but it does make you wonder if a post-pandemic world could take on a similar character. Disease can also function as a leveler.

Of course, the greed that seems endemic to capitalism seems likely to remain a source of tension. The film’s most memorable sequence shows clips from a famed psychological experiment where the rules of the board game Monopoly are rigged dramatically in the favor of one of two participants. The players with the built-in advantages behave poorly as the way the game has been tilted in their favor begins to take effect. They are aggressive and rude. They even invent explanations for their success that have nothing to do with their extreme advantages. If you’re optimistic, then you know this sort of thing must be checked from time to time. If your outlook is less rosy, then you might have visions of a brick going through glass.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century makes clear what we all must be vigilant about, and it leaves you wondering which way this is all going to go, especially as public health and economics collide on the global stage. At the very least, we should all buckle up.