"I don’t see anyone on the list whose ancestors bought a great parcel of land in 1780 and have been accumulating family wealth by collecting rents ever since."

"I don’t see anyone on the list whose ancestors bought a great parcel of land in 1780 and have been accumulating family wealth by collecting rents ever since." Piketty makes it clear that America is a special case because of all of the 'almost free' capital in terms of land and population growth that had existed over the last couple hundred years. But, he claims that America in the future will more resemble Europe of the last few hundred years. Also, although Gates claims that half of the richest people in the US have gotten rich from their businesses (I haven't checked if that's true), he almost ignores the fact that most of these richest people have come from upper middle class background, at the least. He also ignores the huge number of richest people who have attained their wealth from financial instruments.