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Life after Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money

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Author of national bestseller Life After Google and generation-defining Wealth and Poverty , venture capitalist, futurist, and pioneering thinker extraordinaire George Gilder pinpoints how the clash of creativity with power at the heart of economic systems leads to global cognitive dissonance and argues that the creation of the novel taps capitalism's infinite promise and is humanity's only path of escape from stagnation and tyranny. Gilder once more rocks the archetypes of modern information theory and economics with a paradigm-shifting salvo of sheer brilliance.

The capitalist era is over—get ready for life after capitalism.

For more than two hundred years, capitalism spread wealth around the globe, bringing unprecedented prosperity and progress, liberating human potential. But something has gone terribly wrong in the world economy.

Creativity and faith in the future—capitalism’s crucial ingredients—seem to have run out. The elites think they can maintain a nation’s wealth by printing money and investing it in favored industries. Their trust in bureaucratic experts, their cautionary paranoia, and their delusional belief that they can “control” everything from the spread of a virus to the weather, are sucking the life out of the economy. Ordinary people, their freedoms restricted, their prospects dim, are losing their faith in their institutions.

Such misguided corporatism and pride, confusion and despair, are the result of a deep misunderstanding of capitalism itself.

The bestselling futurist and venture capitalist George Gilder explains why economics is not an incentive system to be manipulated but an information system to be freed. Material resources are essentially as plentiful as the atoms of the universe. What drives economic growth in a free market is our limitless human ingenuity and creativity.

Prophetic, inspiring, and paradigm-shifting, Life after Capitalism is a once-in- a-generation classic.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published May 30, 2023

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George Gilder

61 books275 followers

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
Author 20 books79 followers
June 19, 2023
Economist Steven Landsburg wrote: “Incentives matter, the rest is commentary.” George Gilder has launched a new economic theory based on information theory, not incentives. Incentives are ubiquitous, and can’t explain our dramatic increase in standards of living. As he writes, “The creativity is hardly observable, except its effect, so we reduce them all to responses to incentives.” What can explain creativity and knowledge accumulation is information theory. While a lot of economic theory deals with incentives, materialism, scarcity, and static demand, this new theory attempts to explain ingenuity, creativity, accumulating wisdom, and abundance, even superabundance. Gilder lays out four canonical propositions:

1. Wealth is knowledge—we ultimately trade not money or materials but differential knowledge
2. Growth is learning
3. Information is surprise (if you tell me what I already know, you have bored me)
4. Money is time

Economics is not about order and equilibrium, but about creativity, measured by disruption, disorder, economic growth, and surprise. Economics is a dance to the music of time. But, according to Gilder, even as a global surge of capitalist abundance liberates the poor, capitalism’s critics have found a new capitalist victim—the earth itself. “Abundance becomes poverty because it despoils the world.”

Gilder slains many sacred cows among economists, and even the Artificial Intelligence field. He writes about Kurt Godel’s 1931 Incompleteness theorem: Every logical scheme is dependent on axioms outside the scheme that cannot be proved within it.” That Ronald Coase misled generations of economists in his 1937 essay, “The “Nature of the Firm,” which introduced an “efficiency theory.” But companies discover existing knowledge is always obsolescent. This learning comes not from the pursuit of efficiency, but from the pursuit of novelty, doing new things—surprise, in Gilder’s theory. He uses the wonderful metaphor of Malcolm McLean’s “The Box”—the shipping container that sparked globalization—as a example of how information theory applies to the physical world of atoms. It’s a beautiful metaphor. One chapter tells the story of Jim Tour, founder Universal Matter, and why he compares it to the outbreak of the semiconductor companies in the early 1980s. Tour has developed a way to make graphene at scale, and incredibly cheap. Graphene was discovered in the UK, at the University of Manchester in 2004. Tour has developed FG-Flash graphene. It is a thousand times lighter than a sheet of paper, the strongest material ever tested, two-hundred times that of steel, and harder than diamonds. And one product Tour is working on is the ViralWall. It Destroys airborne particles, bacteria, and viruses, like a bug zapper, useful for offices, cruise ships, clubs, bars, etc. We’ve had the Stone, Bronze, String (as Virginia Postrel labels is) Ages, the Silicon Age, and now get ready for the Carbon Age. Gilder asks, “Will the economists notice?” Not until after the fact, I’m afraid, since they pay so little attention to entrepreneurship.

He describes how Milton Friedman and Austrian economists got monetary theory, and money, wrong. It’s not a commodity, it’s a measuring stick. It’s a way to transcend barter, but it can’t be part of what it measures. He explains the Foreign Exchange market, “forex,” trades $8 trillion every day, 73 times the world’s GDP. Gold used to perform the same function with a lot less transactions costs and noise to the system. He also lays out the flaws in Bitcoin as a currency, since it cannot grow.

Gale Pooley, co-author of Superabundance (with Marian Tupy) contributed two chapters on time prices, which is another brilliant contribution to information theory. George Gilder deserves a Nobel Prize in economics. This explains how the world works much better than incentive-based economics. This book is a breathtaking surprise, and enormously advances economic theory. Unfortunately, I'm afraid, it will be ignored by the economics profession. Be sure you don't make the same mistake. Read this book.

We interviewed George on our radio show, The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy. You can listen here: https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/442
Profile Image for Kevin.
32 reviews
August 1, 2023
Takeaways from this book.

1. Correlation is basically the same as causation.
2. Government is dumb because they plan for stuff. The free market has no plan, and that makes them cool.
3. If non renewables are in fact, non renewables, why do I keep finding more? Checkmate atheists.
4. Climate change is no big deal. Also CO2 is actually good. It's, like, what plants eat.
5. Yes, octogenarians can be cryptobros too.
12 reviews1 follower
June 18, 2023
George Gilder successfully navigates us outside of Plato’s cave into the sunlight. Gone are the shadows of materialism which economics has been bound. His four major points – Wealth is knowledge, Growth is learning, Information is surprise, Money is time – gives a framework for understanding the way the world works. To quote: “Economic science ceases to be the dismal study of scarcity and becomes the facilitator of abundance to the extent it shows us how to accelerate learning in time”. This book gives us a new map that leads into an abundant future.
82 reviews1 follower
July 20, 2023
When first introduced to these economic theories, I thought George Gilder was going to lead us down the rabbit hole. But with concrete evidence I'm now of the mindset that it is the economic theories of our institutions/governments/media that led us down the rabbit hole to begin with and Mr Gilder is attempting to guide us back to reality.
Thank you for opening our eyes!
Profile Image for Edz.
62 reviews4 followers
August 2, 2023
"Life After Capitalism" by George Gilder explores the evolution of economics and technology in the modern world, offering a thought-provoking perspective on the potential future beyond traditional capitalism. Gilder challenges the prevailing assumptions about wealth creation and suggests that our understanding of economics needs a radical rethinking.

At the core of Gilder's argument is the idea that knowledge, creativity, and human ingenuity are the true sources of wealth and economic progress. He emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurs, inventors, and innovators in driving economic growth. Gilder believes that technological advancements, particularly in fields like artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and telecommunications, will lead to a post-capitalist era characterized by boundless innovation and unprecedented prosperity, all mediated by information as the key driver behind economics.

Gilder criticizes the prevailing focus on centralized economic planning and government intervention, which he sees as inhibiting the creative forces that drive economic development. He advocates for a more decentralized libertarian approach that empowers individuals and businesses to pursue their entrepreneurial visions freely. This, according to Gilder, would lead to a more dynamic and flourishing economy.

Another central theme in the book is the concept of "cryptocosm" – a term Gilder uses to describe the emerging realm of digital currencies and blockchain technology. He sees these technologies as a potential replacement for traditional financial systems, enabling secure transactions and new forms of value exchange. Gilder's exploration of the cryptocosm highlights his belief in the transformative power of decentralized networks.

The author also addresses the challenges posed by automation and job displacement. He argues that while automation may eliminate certain jobs, it also paves the way for the creation of new, more fulfilling roles that leverage human creativity and skills. Gilder envisions a future where individuals are liberated from repetitive tasks, allowing them to contribute to society in more meaningful and innovative ways.

Throughout the book, Gilder emphasizes the role of human agency in shaping the future. He believes that individuals have the capacity to drive progress and create new opportunities, even in the face of technological disruption. He advocates for a renewed focus on education that nurtures critical thinking, problem-solving, and entrepreneurship.

Overall, "Life After Capitalism" presents a vision of a future economic landscape where innovation, decentralized networks, and human ingenuity play central roles. Gilder challenges conventional materialist economic thinking and offers a compelling argument for embracing technological advancements to usher in a new era of prosperity and human flourishing.
Profile Image for Seth.
606 reviews
September 24, 2023
Over 40 years, George Gilder has published deep and insightful writing on many topics: technological futurism, supply side economics, the nation and culture of Israel, the philosophy of money. What’s more, these works have staying power: one of his earliest books, “Men and Marriage,” which explores the cultural impact of the sexual dynamics between the sexes, is experiencing a fresh round of interest and discussion in the wake of a re-issue by Canon Press, who has also made a documentary about the author’s life.

Gilder’s latest book is a follow-up to “Life After Google,” about which I interviewed him in 2019. He told me via email that my review was “fabulous […] It was the most comprehensive—and comprehending!–job anyone did on the book.” You can read the review here and listen to the interview here. Naturally, I was excited to read the next phase of his thought.

The Foundation of Wealth is Information

So what is life after capitalism? Has Gilder finally surrendered to his critics’ narrative of a rapacious, socially destructive economic system? Surely not. After all, Gilder was the most recognized and vociferous advocate for supply side economics in the 80s, becoming known as Ronald Reagan’s “most quoted living economist.”

No. What Gilder attempts to do in this book is revise and expand the traditional range of views on capitalism and economics—from the Marxists and Keynesians to the Chicagoans and Austrians. He does this by applying a new method of calculating abundance called “time prices,” integrating mathematician Claude Shannon’s information theory and resetting economics “upon its foundational truths: Wealth is knowledge, growth is learning. Money is time. Information is surprise.”

Gilder argues that wealth is not ultimately defined by capital goods, commodities, raw materials and physical resources, or accumulated currency. Rather, wealth is information. Knowledge. Surprise.

“The dollar value of the car evaporated in the seconds it took you to crash it against that wall, but its weight did not. The car’s value evaporated, not because the crash destroyed the atoms that made up the Bugatti, but because the crash changed the way in which these were arranged. That arrangement is information.”

Similarly, someone once pointed out that the caveman had all the physical resources needed to build a computer but was missing the most important component: the information for how to build it.

Gilder explains surprise and knowledge through the lens of a philosophical and mathematical framework known as Information Theory, the intellectual legacy of mathematician Claude Shannon and other academics in the mid 20th century. Gilder’s deepest and most thorough exploration of these concepts is found in his 2013 book Knowledge and Power, which I highly recommend despite its density. But the central point is simple to grasp without a technical explanation: knowledge is what truly drives innovation, development, and material abundance in society. That is the first leg of the stool Guilder is building.

The White Pill of Global Abundance

The second leg of Gilder’s stool relies heavily on the work of two economists, Gale Pooley and Marian Tupy, and it emphasizes using time prices as a better measurement of money’s changing purchasing power. For the uninitiated, it’s a simple yet significant paradigm shift. It’s also a massive white pill, about which more in a moment.

Since our economy is wholly manipulated by insidious government interventions, quantifying the true cost of goods and services in currency terms is no easy task. Debasement of the money supply exerts significant upward pressure on prices (“inflation” to the average citizen), yet at the same the innovations and advancements of the capitalists and entrepreneurs exert downward pressure (look at the “deflating” price of a new TV over the years). With this perpetual tug-of-war going on around us, is it a fool’s errand to even attempt to measure changes in prices over time?

Enter Pooley and Tupy, who developed a deceptively simple calculation to solve this problem:

“We buy things with money, but we pay for them with time. This means there are two prices, money prices and time prices. Money prices are expressed in dollars and cents, while time prices are expressed in hours and minutes.”

[…]

“Time is the only resource that cannot be recycled, stored, duplicated, or recovered. Time prices calculate the hours and minutes needed to earn the money to buy goods and services. Unlike money prices, time prices are unequivocal and universal. All other prices are circular. Measuring value by measured values, commodities by commodities.”

If you divide the nominal price of an item into the average blue-collar wage of the time, it answers the question, “how many minutes or hours would I have to work to afford X?” It sidesteps entirely the confusion created by inflated currency and its reduced purchasing power, etc. Here are two examples:

In 1902, Sears Robuck sold hammers for 53 cents. This sounds like a good deal until you realize that blue collar compensation was 15 cents an hour. A hammer cost 3.53 hours of work. Today, Home Depot sells a basic hammer for around $6.50, and a blue-collar worker earns around $33.39 in hourly compensation, wages, and benefits. This would indicate a hammer time price of around 12 minutes. You get 18.1 hammers today for the time price of 1 in 1902.

[…]

If the time price of a basic bicycle had stayed the same since 1910, one would cost around $2,216 today, 66.4 hours times $33.39. The time price has fallen by 95.6% from 66.39 hours to 2.94 hours. For the time required to earn the money to buy one bicycle in 1910, you will get 22.62 today. This represents a 2,162% increase in bicycle abundance on a personal level.

I encourage the reader to gorge himself on the statistics jam-packed into chapter 9, “An Efflorescence of Abundances,” and marinate in the inevitable shock and delight they bring. The realizations will shock you with two prongs, one positive and one negative: First, what an incredible recognition that our wealth has grown exponentially as our “time prices” have dramatically declined. And on the negative side, how much more wealth and abundance would we have if our government hadn’t bled away so much of our purchasing power with their debasing shenanigans? It’s a white and black pill served together, and we’re fortunate that the medicine is strong enough to overcome the poison.

The astonishing conclusion of Pooley’s and Tupy’s research is that the global abundance of the most widely used physical resources have dramatically increased over the last few decades, despite the consumption of those same resources increasing along with population growth:

“[F]or every increment of population growth, global resources have grown by a factor of eight….[T]he only relevant scarcity is human lives. People are not a burden on resources. They are the ultimate resource.”

Side note: Get this excellent coffee table book, Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know.

Left unaddressed was the dissonance between this white pill of global abundance and the sense across western society that it can’t possibly all be true. I believe that calculations offered by Pooley and Tupy are accurate, yet why does it feel like the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class is being squeezed in an economic vice? That Gilder leaves this tension unexplored is a significant miss in an otherwise encouraging section of the book.

Money: A Perplexing Miss on Bitcoin

Money is the third leg of the stool. Gilder’s central thesis on money—that it needs to be rooted in an objective (and not a self-referential) metric so it can properly measure the subjective value of goods and services—is sound, and his argument is developed in greatest detail in 2016’s The Scandal of Money. The basic point is that money is supposed to be a measuring stick, and thus it should be rooted in objectivity.

The one element of Gilder’s thinking that I admit perplexes me is his insistence that Bitcoin’s hard cap of 21 million coins is a flaw. As anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with a Bitcoin maxi knows, the hard cap is considered one of its most important attributes, a parameter as sacred and inviolable as the laws of physics. The reasons for this are numerable, not least of which is that an uninflatable money supply is an essential contrast to the fiat currencies which are constantly manipulated by governments, always to their benefit and to our detriment. And while Gilder does vociferously oppose those fiat shenanigans that addict and entice abusive states, he thinks Bitcoin should and will be replaced by a digital currency that has a steady and consistent increase in its supply.

I fail to follow his reasoning here. As Saifedean Ammous argues, the actual quantity of currency units in a society is irrelevant as long as it’s “hard”; prices are subjective, and they will always adjust relative to each other and the total volume of currency in an economy. Individual goods and their prices are the numerator, while the money supply is the denominator. Fiat expansion of the money supply is unethical because it dishonestly spreads out the claims on resources; it’s a surreptitious and hidden redistribution of wealth. Yet Gilder explicitly argues that as abundance increases, the money supply needs to necessarily expand with it.

But this makes no sense to me. If money is a measuring stick, as Gilder is fond of saying, then why would we want the measuring stick to change? Prices should adjust relative to the unchanging measuring stick.

I asked Gilder about this when I interviewed him in 2019. His answer, which I still find unconvincing, is available here. This is one major disagreement with him, and laymen like me would be well-served to hear a deep discussion between Gilder and a pro-hard-cap Bitcoin intellectual who matches him in knowledge and intelligence. There is so much we all agree on, and I’d like to see this wrinkle ironed out.

Life After Capitalism

Everything Gilder covers in this latest work can be summarized as follows:

All the schools of economic thought, from the Marxists to the Monetarists, fail to recognize that people—with all their creative capacity—are the true source of wealth, innovation, and abundance rather than any other physical resource.

Free people up and they will discover information (knowledge) that unleashes unfathomable growth in productivity for society.

Refuse to meddle in the mechanics of money, and wealth will be measured and distributed correctly and justly.

Everything else flows from these ideas.

Gilder has proven many times over his ability to see around the corner of our technological society. He’s worth giving your attention.
Profile Image for Drtaxsacto.
647 reviews52 followers
July 7, 2023
So I have spent the last four decades learning from George Gilder - we first met when I was the President of the Washington Chapter of the Ripon society. On at least six instances George has forced me to (as Steve Jobs used to say) "Think Different".

In this book he postulates that life is not a ZERO SUM GAME - and if you believe the prophets of this nonsense you'll soon be forced into what he calls emergency socialism.

The book starts with four premises - 1) Wealth is Knowledge; 2) Growth is Learning ; 3) Money is Time ; 4) Information is surprise.

Gilder harkens back to Julian Simon who before his death wrote two volumes of "The Ultimate Resource" and had the temerity to challenge loons like Paul Ehrlich about their apocalypse scenarios.

He has tons of stats to challenge the existing logic on things like Climate Change (since 1980 C02 has increased by 22% while the world economy has grown by more than 500%.).

He reiterates a concept that I first learned with Hayek - which stated that there is no such thing as "singular expertise". He credits Godel's axiom that all logical systems are dependent on axioms that are no provable within the system itself (they all rely on objects of faith).

This is a powerful book which builds on his earlier work - it takes some time but is well worth the effort. If you believe in zero sum games you won't like this or you will see the error of your ways.
134 reviews
December 30, 2024
Gilder presents his time theory of money (read labor theory of value). The book does not actually make 100% bad points, but it presents the labor theory of value completely unconvincingly, by assuming that everyone works as a average blue collar wage. There is an entire chapter where a Bringham Young University of Hawaii Professor just lists the value of things in terms of nominal prices and median blue collar wages. Most of the goods picked (tech) are cherry picked or in regard to food, the time period is so extended that the "surprise" that the goods are cheaper are not surprising at all. The time theory of value is really just building economic growth into prices, so its the exact same thing as comparing wages to real prices. Gilder then takes the very reasnable observation that Forex markets are unstable and not tied to economics to argue that money is... fake, or some type of conspiracy theory. He actually argues that money is not a commodity, which is true, but also nobody is arguing that; he doesnt bring up the word "fiat" at all. He then denies climate change, citing 2 scientists. He then states (0 scientists this time) that all energy is renewable.
I wanted to give two stars because i do think that "information" itself is valuable, and that markets constantly moving are hiding the information in the constant noise. And he makes that point. But it doesnt redeem the rest of the book. Moreover, saying something has value, and then determining that it is the only source of value and should undermine all of economics (without defining any additional premises, conclusions, theorems, etc) is just lazy. Akin to saying, we shouldnt base nutrition on the calorie, we should base it on how it makes you feel. Like yes, a good idea, but what do you put on a label, how do you define a diet, how do you measure it?


Check out the book podcast on my profile!
Profile Image for Ben.
2,710 reviews200 followers
May 19, 2023
Economics!

This book is a truly great book to gain experience on some really important and big economics terminology and ideas in a very bite-sized and step-by-step way.

I found that it was a very interesting book and I really like how it gave a lot of examples of how pricing and economy changes over the years for things such as inflation and cost of living.

The author is very knowledgeable and the book is very well laid out with various chapters on each key subject of capitalism

I also found that - although the book, to me at least felt, like a more introductory economics book - the verbiage used in the book was very advanced, so there was a bit of a disconnect. However, that could just be me, as I have read many economics books in the past.

All-in-all a really great book. Important read!

4.4/5
2 reviews
July 30, 2023
On the one hand, the book was not easy to read due to its terminologies and examples, on the another hand, the core idea repeatedly occurred throughout all chapters. Moreover, the author use partial true data to support his proposal. And I really dislike that he cited lot of authority (some authority has been dismissed already) to make the book sound scientific.

He suggests to use information theory for economics which can be summed up as four propositions:
-wealth is knowledge (the differential knowledge that people exchanges)
-growth is learning (the learning accumulated over time)
-information is surprise (information is new)
-money is time

He defined the real price as time-price which is calculated as the price of a product or service divided by your wage. It is a good way to measure your life standards over time span.

He considered that sustainability is a fallacy. He citied the data (1980-2020) from Tupy and Pooley to support his proposal that CO2 is not problematic to environment and economy, which is highly contradictory to scientific facts.

He disagrees with the domain though that economic is the science of allocation of scare resources. And he regards the drive for economic growth is human creativity, knowledge and learning.

I like the opinion about his learning attitude: if something doesn’t work, then you are actually learning.

Profile Image for Philemon -.
421 reviews26 followers
August 29, 2024
In many ways a brilliant mind at work, but he makes, IMHO, two egregious missteps:

1) He's so entranced with technology, with Moore's Law and "accelerating returns," like Ray Kurzweil he believes tech will solve humanity's problems in reciprocal exponential time while providing universal affluence for all well within a generation. Overshoot? No problem. Climate change? Likewise. More than once he implies that since life is carbon based, CO2 can't possibly hurt us. How ignorant can he be? Does he believe Moore's Law can free us from all dependence on Nature? Yes, he does. Will AI and geoengineering save us from rising temperatures, wind, water, fire, and the collapse of the Gulf Stream's overturning circulation? Good luck.

2) He believes that billionaires are good, the more unequal the better, and that monopolies are the ultimate in efficiency. Elon Musk must be the Moses, then, who'll lead us to the promised land.

Why four stars, then? Because this book is well written and packed with stimulating ideas. Definitely worth a read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Kellylynn.
534 reviews
August 29, 2023
Overall I just do not know what was the point of this book. I spent most of the time reading this book shaking my head. So much of it just does not make sense. The author sites opinions and concepts from other authors that have been fully and scientifically proven incorrect. The overall concept in the book is that money is not the key commodity in the world, it is knowledge. And that truly is something to ponder.

I also struggled with a key factor that gets used in calculations throughout the book. Where is it that the average blue collar worker salary is over $30 an hour. I definitely do not see that in our area. Utilizing something like this in calculation based ideas kind of negates a good portion of the population.

And then there is the climate and sustainability denials, it was just painful reading an agenda being laid out without any scientific background involved in anyway.

I actually won this one in one of the giveaways.
February 6, 2024
Audiobook
Less interesting than a previous title from the same author. Long passages detailing more and more examples when we got it on the first one.
Very biased towards American free market capitalism. (Avoid if you are more on the left side of the political spectrum or if you are comfortable to hear/read opposing viewpoints) A little ironic because the book explains the need for a measuring stick for wealth when the author is completely biased towards his own perspective of the economy.
The title is somewhat misleading since the book IS about capitalism, very little "upwind" on the future apart from the last part of the title regarding the time theory of money and it's increasing value as a measuring stick for our era.
The scientific elements inserted in the text to "validate" the author's thinking are mostly buzzwords, with the author trying to use his credibility to reinforce his assessments, many of which I found very doubtful or often thinly stretched.
Profile Image for Stuart Berman.
156 reviews5 followers
July 15, 2023
This book is mind bending, proving Gilder’s grasp of technology and melding it with understanding economics and Information Theory.


From the epilogue
Ten Do’s and Don’ts for a Thriving Economy in an Information Age.
Do keep government regular and predictable.
Do keep money as predictable and fungible as time.
Do allow bankruptcy and failure.
Do promote experimentation but don’t determine outcomes.
Do favor trade and exchange.
Don’t control prices they are a source of information and knowledge.
Don’t give guarantees, government guarantees thwart discovery, surprise and suppress learning.
Don’t subsidize the incumbent structures of economic power.
Don’t fight uncertainty.
Do remember you are not in control.
124 reviews
August 27, 2023
Maybe this could've been a good book, but the author loves bringing scientific terminology to make him sound like a genius when the underlying logic behind a lot of his beliefs is tenuous at best. Three examples off the top of my head.

On one hand, he lauds the security of blockchain, and also references that 5m bitcoins are intreviably gone.

He looks back wistfully at the gold standard as being a store of real value, without ever acknowledging that at least a significant portion of gold's value is also social (and not "real").

The time value curve is the big takeaway from the book, but the author repeats that you can't trust any valuations anyway. So the entire dataset is useless?

I'm not going to even get into the climate and sustainability denials, or the idea that there is essentially no thing as finite resources. You can have different beliefs, but it's painful reading someone putting forward their agenda under the guise of scientific expertise.
Profile Image for Eddie Chua.
164 reviews
February 1, 2024
A difficult book to read initially, not because it was hard to read, instead because it challenges everything I previously had understood and hold on about wealth. It was an alternative perspective, taken deeper into the Gilder's train of thought, and understand that wealth is knowledge.

"Entrepreneurs who best fuse the ascent of information technology with the stability of gold, will create a new technology standard for both the internet and the world economy".
This is the future as predicted by Gilder, and now for me to pay attention of what and where new technology is being created and applied. In fact may already be here!

Wealth growth can be exponential, as information growth is as such.
Profile Image for Alice.
55 reviews12 followers
February 23, 2024
Money is a measure of wealth rather than wealth itself. It cannot be redistributed by governments without soon losing its worth.

Without the knowledge and learning the money loses its meaning and value. Redistribution of money causes inflation—the rising prices are because of the decreasing value being caused.



George Gilder is a brilliant man and I feel like I only understood a portion of the book but definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to understand more about economics, wages, inflation, wealth, government and how they all interact.
329 reviews3 followers
August 21, 2023
There are some genuine insights here, but this book is generally disappointing and repetitive. After reading The Spirit of Enterprise, Gilder's excellent history of the Simplot family, this book was a terrible comedown.

You'll see K... [see the rest on my book review site.]
Profile Image for Kelcie.
22 reviews
April 9, 2024
I wanted to read a book about economics, not the author's pseudoscientific anti-evolution, anti-climate change ramblings, non-sequiters, and how he thinks unhoused people are "bums" (Saying that in 2023? Seriously?)
Profile Image for Jordan Douglass.
124 reviews1 follower
July 14, 2023
There was some high-level reading but also some relatable examples. #GoodreadsGiveaway
Profile Image for William Schrecengost.
890 reviews34 followers
July 29, 2023
Excellent. A further development of his thought from Knowledge and Power and the Scandal of Money.

Money is time.
57 reviews1 follower
August 6, 2023
Interesting book, but a masters degree in economics might be needed to understand everything.
Profile Image for Xulin.
52 reviews
September 27, 2023
some points of view are instructive, some are too godlike assertive to believe in
Profile Image for David.
345 reviews10 followers
June 24, 2024
Loved the chapters on superabundance and viewing purchasing power through time-labor as the measuring stick.
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