Summary

Piketty begins the second part of the book, entitled “The Dynamics of the Capital/Income Ratio,” with a discussion of the two most enduring forms of capital: land and government bonds. He draws examples from nineteenth-century novels to give some idea of how these two forms of capital structured everyday life. As technology progresses, newer and more dynamic forms of capital begin to take up share in the composition of capital (113-16).

Piketty presents graphs showing the value of national capital and its composition for Britain (116), France (117), Germany (141), the U.S. (151), and Canada (157). In each case, two main trends remain the same. One is that the value of national capital declines during and after World War II. The second main trend shows that in each country, the share of agricultural land in the composition of national capital sharply declines upon entering the twentieth...