Ed and Ron were excited for their interview with George Gilder, author of the brand new book, Life After Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money, published May 30, 2023. This was George’s fourth appearance on The Soul of Enterprise. He is Ron’s 42-year mentor, since his publication of Wealth & Poverty in 1981, which changed Ron’s life forever after. His latest book is a groundbreaking new theory of economics that, at last, explains capitalism as a knowledge-based system, not one revolving around incentives, greed, or materialism. It is truly groundbreaking, and you will want to hear what George has to say about how it will change our way of understanding economics, wealth, growth, technology, our standard of living, and the future of human flourishing.
About George Gilder
GEORGE GILDER, one of America’s leading economic and technological thinkers, is the author of many groundbreaking books, including Wealth and Poverty, Knowledge and Power, The Scandal of Money, and Life after Google. A founding fellow of the Discovery Institute, where he began his study of information theory, and an influential venture capitalist. He lives with his wife on his family farm in western Massachusetts.
Use these show notes to follow along with the audio. George’s quotes are in bold and they are GREAT.
Segment one:
Fun fact: Our show, The Soul of Enterprise, is named based on George Gilder’s book, The Spirit of Enterprise. https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Enterprise-George-Gilder/dp/0786100532
George’s new book, Life After Capitalism, is really a new economic theory based on information theory. It overturns the conventional wisdom based on economics. https://www.amazon.com/Life-after-Capitalism-George-Gilder/dp/1684512247
“Wealth is knowledge” is a key principal in George Gilder’s new book, Life After Capitalism. With every doubling of total units sold costs tend to drop between 20-30%. That’s a well documented learning curve across all industries.
“Entrepreneurship is the process of creating new information adding to the tapestry of knowledge that comprises all wealth.” —George Gilder
“Money is what remains scarce when everything else grows abundant” —George Gilder
Segment two:
“Wealth is knowledge and the only way we can distribute wealth is to teach people.” —George Gilder
For people who create (entrepreneurs), George Gilder says today not he show, “The more possibilities [based on creation] the larger the portfolio of ideas.”
George blew our mind today with a discussion on Gödel's incompleteness theorems: Any logical system is necessarily dependent on axioms outside of the system that can’t be proven within the system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems
“There is no necessary connection between symbols and objects. You need to interpret them. Reality is triadic.” —George Gilder
Segment three:
George Gilder was really delighted to read the book “The Box” which tells the history of containerization of all of the ports and trade in the world. https://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691136408
“The transmission of anything is essentially an information problem rather than a material problem.” —George Gilder
Packet shipping (physical goods) and packet switching (data) are effectively the same thing when George Gilder thinks about it. It’s the transfer of discrete, containerized items or data.
Graphene is a key element discovery that will drive future innovation. It’s effectively a single layer of carbon atoms that is 200x stronger than steel, as flexible as rubber, and 1000x more conductive as copper.
Segment four:
Related to Graphene, George Gilder mentioned a company called Universal Matter. You can check them out here https://www.universalmatter.com/
“Money needs to be a measuring stick and not a magic wand.” —George Gilder
“Bitcoin is a speculative asset rather than a currency. With a HODL strategy (Hold On for Dear Life)” —George Gilder
The four pillars of George GIlder’s new book, Life After Capitalism, are: Wealth is knowledge, Growth is learning, Information is surprise, Money is time. Check it out here https://www.amazon.com/Life-after-Capitalism-George-Gilder/dp/1684512247
Bonus Content is Available As Well
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