Capital in the Twenty-First Century by
Thomas Piketty, 2014, Excerpts
Foreign possessions became
important in the period 1750-1800. It was the nineteenth century that British
subjects began to acquire considerable assets in the rest of the world, in
amounts previously unknown and never surpassed to this day. By the eve of WWI,
Britain had assembled the world’s preeminent colonial empire and owned foreign
assets. France was the second most important colonial power.
By the turn of the twentieth
century, capital invested abroad was yielding around 5 percent a year in dividends,
interest, and rent. A fairly significant social group was able to live off this
boon. The rest of world worked to increase consumption by the colonial powers
and at the same time became more and more indebted to those same powers.
France and Britain have always
been countries based on private property; private wealth has always dominated
public wealth. Private wealth in 2010 accounts for virtually all of national
wealth in both countries: more than 99 percent in Britain and roughly 95
percent in France.
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