Backlash and the Future of Globalization

Concerns about global inequality found one of their most visible expressions in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York's Zuccotti Park in September 2011 and popularized the slogan "We are the 99%," directing attention to the concentration of wealth among the top one percent of earners. The movement spread to hundreds of cities worldwide within weeks but dissolved without producing a unified policy program, leaving a debated legacy: supporters credit it with shifting public discourse and academic attention toward inequality, symbolized by the influence of economist Thomas Piketty's 2013 book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, while critics note it achieved little in the way of durable institutional or legislative change.