The division of labor in the 21st century: a review of Thomas Piketty’s “The Capital”

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7867/2317-5443.2023v11n3p5-25

Abstract

Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the twenty-first century discusses growing global inequality and proposes the global taxation of wealth in order to curb one of the drivers of inequality: a class of hyper-executives with super salaries. The aim of this article is to return to the book a decade after its release in order to propose that the emergence of hyper-executives may be the effect of a change in the international division of labour, brought about by the advent of Information Technology during the Third Industrial Revolution. Texts analysing Piketty’s theses, a selected bibliography on the division of labour and databases were used to discuss the issue. The results suggest that the concentration of companies developing consumer goods during the Third Industrial Revolution in the United States of America promoted the appreciation of the executives of these companies in the Anglo-Saxon world and spread to other areas of the market, promoting a generalised increase in executive salaries, contrary to the argument based on localised cultural issues, as pointed out by Piketty.

Keywords: Capital in the twenty-first century; division of labour; inequality; Third Industrial Revolution; Thomas Piketty.

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Published

2025-04-22

How to Cite

Gomes, G. F. (2025). The division of labor in the 21st century: a review of Thomas Piketty’s “The Capital”. Revista Brasileira De Desenvolvimento Regional, 11(3), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.7867/2317-5443.2023v11n3p5-25

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Artigos