As the Occupy Wall Street movement began to crest and millennials the world over started to realize they’d be the first generation since World War II to make less money than their parents, French economist Thomas Piketty had the good fortune to release a hyper-readable book that explained why (or at least offered a lucid argument for liberals to debate and conservatives to deny). “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” moved 1.5 million copies in its first two years of release, making it the highest-selling title that Harvard University Press has ever published, and turning its author into the closest thing his field has to a rock star.

Now, in the midst of an election year pandemic that is ruthlessly exposing…

This film is completely inadequate for our times: a broad survey of the history of our destructive economic system, in which technocrats gently suggest 'we need to fix capitalism'. It could be an Elizabeth Warren speech. If you're looking for anything resembling radical political or economic ideas, this is not the film for you.

It is unconscionable to me that a film titled 'Capital in the 21st Century' makes no mention of the climate crisis–the defining problem of our time. There has been a wealth of research over the past decade attributing the origins of global warming to the fossil-fueled dawn of capitalism–and the rampant acceleration of emissions in the past three decades to the deregulated capitalism unleashed by neoliberalism–and…

I mean as far as documentaries go this wasn't too bad. It was kind of like a less coherent Hypernormalization.

As far as the actual content goes though it was atrocious. "Yeah we're seeing massive wealth inequality globally and the solution to that is... progressive taxation!" It is impossible for me to see the history of capitalism and conclude that anything short of capitalism itself is the problem. But this movie wants to convince you that first world countries ought to return to a more equitable capitalism of the post-war era.

As with most things this would be better if it were Marxist. If you go through this thinking that the events and effects in here was just a random…

☆"The way the elite stays in power, and passes on their privilege to the next generation, is by shaping the way that we think."☆

It's a good time to watch a documentary like this, one with insight and key facts despite its mediocre quality, as we head from one presidential administration to another. Well, eventually. I guess not if Oozy Giuliani has anything to say about it.

Also, it's on the 2020 list of documentary Oscar submissions -- thanks Ken Rudolph! -- so that means I'll do my damnedest to watch it.

Anyway, still, this is an important story from a lauded book, adapted from Capital in the Twenty-First Century by the French economist Thomas Piketty. Director Justin Pemberton uses…

I mean this in the nicest possible way: there is no point writing a book or making a documentary about the history of capitalism if you are not a Marxist.

Please spare us.

You end up with this snivelling technocratic plea to the rich: 'just let us tax you progressively!?' Surely then everything will be sorted (bzzt, it won't, it does not address the bulk of what is wrong with the system).

But wait, it gets even funnier. This documentary points out the aristocracy of Europe resisted that very notion until violent revolutions took place. There is no question that this will repeat in the 21st century. Whatever mild reforms the ruling class implement to save their skins will only…

Visually interesting rat-a-tat summation of Pikkety's fascinating thoughts (nope, I've not read it). It's somewhat  erratic, and its argument is a little inconsistent and inevitably simplified. I would have liked to have seen more thoughts on why inequality matters, and an acceptance that China has gone some way to bucking the trends to establish a growing middle class. But there are heavyweight views on offer: Stiglitz, Fukuyama, Pikkety himself.

Interesting that so much of the footage to support its view is media and fiction: news, film, literature etc. Pop will eat itself to be sure - the 21st Century of social media commenting on traditional media which gets its material from social media and so on - a vicious circle…

I absolutely ADORED having such a wide variety of speakers for the interview portions of the documentary. I was also fairly surprised I liked all the movie clips too. It tied together [capitalist] culture and economic capital well, illustrating the close intertwinement of the two umbrella terms. Some of the cinematography seemed a tad cheesy to me (felt like a snapchat filter at times) but I still enjoyed the aesthetics. My main qualm with this movie is that it didn't dig deeper. I'm assuming that within the book the author dissected these historical economic trends, but I didn't feel the depth within this piece. I felt the "grab your attention," through movie clips but not a focus on the specifics…