Inherited advantage regained nineteenth-century decisiveness at the twenty-first century’s start

Evidence

With so many children of privilege winning the public’s attention, it felt like society was returning to an explicitly aristocratic age. As French economist Thomas Piketty observed, “Inherited wealth comes close to being as decisive at the beginning of the twenty-first century as it was in the age of Balzac’s Père Goriot [set in 1819].” Beyond financial inheritance, cultural capital—connections, industry fluency, or even an ingrained affability—gave the offspring of elites a decided edge in the crowded media landscape. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 667

Categorization

• XREF: Piketty’s inheritance data connects to the book’s broader status-and-inequality thread on aspirational dissatisfaction.