[snowwrestler]

With respect to Piketty, the industries in which the U.S. is a world leader today include finance, entertainment, software, pharmaceuticals, and industrial equipment. None of these depend on the availability of land or other physical capital.

[georgeecollins]

That is totally orthogonal to his point. He isn't talking about what industries succeed. He is making that point that because land was relatively cheap, labor was relatively valuable.