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Wealth and Poverty
In this acclaimed work, Gilder offers an illuminating discussion of how to increase wealth and curtail poverty, arguing that most welfare programs only serve to keep the poor in poverty as victims of welfare dependency. 9 cassettes.
365 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
December 15, 2014
Wow. Wow. That is all I can say. This book was devoid of any facts, data, studies. If you enjoy generalizations, assumptions, conjectures, then this is the book for you. If you prefer to look at evidence in order to arrive at a conclusion, there is not one iota of evidence in this book. I read this to try and learn the conservative point of view - I really hope there are better books out there or I will wonder if conservative thinking is based on anything other than what comes out of people's asses.
August 24, 2019
DNF.
The opening premise of this book (updated version)--that the fall of the Soviet Union represents the failure of socialism, and therefore the triumph of laissez-faire capitalism--is clearly false. Democratic socialism is thriving all over the place in Europe, Canada, etc. In the U.S., the military and other programs operate on a socialist model. Unregulated free market capitalism is an ideological construct, not a reality in any successful major country that I am aware of.
Another major assumption--that entrepreneurs motivated by profit/greed/competition are necessary for progress--is also false. For example, the miracles of modern medicine like penicillin and the polio vaccine were created by curious and well-meaning scientists working at non-profits.
Honest, useful businesses welcome both regulation and competition. It's not either/or.
As for the causes of chronic intergenerational poverty in America, his discussion is in a context of no context.
The opening premise of this book (updated version)--that the fall of the Soviet Union represents the failure of socialism, and therefore the triumph of laissez-faire capitalism--is clearly false. Democratic socialism is thriving all over the place in Europe, Canada, etc. In the U.S., the military and other programs operate on a socialist model. Unregulated free market capitalism is an ideological construct, not a reality in any successful major country that I am aware of.
Another major assumption--that entrepreneurs motivated by profit/greed/competition are necessary for progress--is also false. For example, the miracles of modern medicine like penicillin and the polio vaccine were created by curious and well-meaning scientists working at non-profits.
Honest, useful businesses welcome both regulation and competition. It's not either/or.
As for the causes of chronic intergenerational poverty in America, his discussion is in a context of no context.
April 28, 2008
This is one of the most solid conservative books ever written. Gilder explains the psychology of wealth and that of poverty. He explains the damage that government poverty programs have done to their recipients and why. Because Gilder goes much deeper than any topical description of where things were when he wrote the book this book is still very relevant. This goes to the basis of how some people can rise from poverty and how others can slide from wealth into poverty. The same is true of entire societies, as we are about to find out in a nation rapidly abandoning the psychology of wealth and adopting that of poverty.
August 22, 2012
You don't have to buy into it or be "converted" - but approach with a semi-open mind and you'll find some provocatively challenging thought here. No political philosophy or economic theory has a monopoly on truth or wisdom.
The world and we are much complicated to be encompassed by any single schema. And note that much of what we call the "left" and "right" have existed since the beginning of human economic societies. There are reasons of balancing each other out involved.
Anyway, Gilder's a unique and way bright guy who knows his way around a sentence.
The world and we are much complicated to be encompassed by any single schema. And note that much of what we call the "left" and "right" have existed since the beginning of human economic societies. There are reasons of balancing each other out involved.
Anyway, Gilder's a unique and way bright guy who knows his way around a sentence.
July 20, 2020
Very great.
September 3, 2014
A full-throated moral, philosophical, and practical defense of capitalism. Rather than advocate with reluctance for capitalism, granting critics' charges of its excesses and a supposed foundation of greed, Gilder shows that only a capitalist system will bring true prosperity and growth to all levels of a society.
Gilder argues that the most important element of capitalistic growth and success is the entrepreneur, the person who puts up capital in risky ventures in the hope of a payout. These risks fail more often than they succeed, but in all cases knowledge is learned--knowledge upon which new ventures build.
Simply scanning topics he covers and the conclusions he draws, one might think Gilder is just pitching conservative Republican ideology warmed over. But his arguments eschew partisanship in favor of a philosophical, principled, and utterly researched approach. Gilder's breadth of knowledge and understanding of economics and sociology is stimulating to encounter; having read his more recent (and even more theoretical) Knowledge & Power, I can see he is truly a polymath.
With lots of documentation, Gilder shows how welfare programs are destructive because they ultimately become worth more to the recipients than independent hard work. Do not shut down social safety nets entirely, he says, but those programs should provide benefits with worth just under the value of one's own labor, otherwise the incentives are skewed. And for heaven's sake, don't tie benefit increases to inflation or the CPI; that's just asking for dependency. In addition to undermining the perceived value of hard work, welfare programs have also reverse the incentives of marriage and child-bearing. Plus, the drain on private enterprise by the taxation and other penalties necessary to fund such programs inhibit the ability of businesses to grow, become more profitable and thus create more and better jobs.
Gilder writes:
Gilder argues that the most important element of capitalistic growth and success is the entrepreneur, the person who puts up capital in risky ventures in the hope of a payout. These risks fail more often than they succeed, but in all cases knowledge is learned--knowledge upon which new ventures build.
Simply scanning topics he covers and the conclusions he draws, one might think Gilder is just pitching conservative Republican ideology warmed over. But his arguments eschew partisanship in favor of a philosophical, principled, and utterly researched approach. Gilder's breadth of knowledge and understanding of economics and sociology is stimulating to encounter; having read his more recent (and even more theoretical) Knowledge & Power, I can see he is truly a polymath.
With lots of documentation, Gilder shows how welfare programs are destructive because they ultimately become worth more to the recipients than independent hard work. Do not shut down social safety nets entirely, he says, but those programs should provide benefits with worth just under the value of one's own labor, otherwise the incentives are skewed. And for heaven's sake, don't tie benefit increases to inflation or the CPI; that's just asking for dependency. In addition to undermining the perceived value of hard work, welfare programs have also reverse the incentives of marriage and child-bearing. Plus, the drain on private enterprise by the taxation and other penalties necessary to fund such programs inhibit the ability of businesses to grow, become more profitable and thus create more and better jobs.
Gilder writes:
The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America today is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of TANF, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time, and all the other goods and services of the welfare state. As long as this situation persists, real family poverty will tend to get worse, particularly in areas congested with the poor. (171-2)The most important element in capitalism is neither capital nor physical materials, but rather information. Sclerotic government interference destroys information and the ability of entrepreneurs to learn it, and learn from it.
The greatest damage inflicted by state systems of redistribution is not the "distortion of markets, the "misallocation of resources," or the "discoordination" of producers and consumers, but the deflation of capitalist energy, the repression of entrepreneurial ideas, and the stultification of wealth. Steeply "progressive" tax rates not only destroy incentives; more important, they destroy knowledge. They take from the givers and thus prevent them from giving again, from reinvesting their winnings in the light of the new information generated by the original gift. (44)And:
The United States must overcome the materialist fallacy: the illusion that resources and capital are essentially things, which can run out, rather than products of human will and imagination, which in freedom are inexhaustible. This fallacy is one of the oldest of economic delusions, from the period of empire when men believed that wealth was land, to the period of mercantilism when they fantasized that it was gold, to the contemporary period when they suppose it is oil; and our citizens clutch at real estate and gold as well. But economists make an only slightly lesser error when they add up capital in quantities and assume that wealth consists mainly in machines and factories. Throughout history, from Venice to Hong Kong, the fastest growing countries have been the lands best endowed not with things but with free minds and private rights to property. Two of the most thriving of the world's economies lost nearly all their material capital during World War II and surged back by emancipating entrepreneurs. The materialist vision, by contrast, leads merely to newer versions of the fate of Midas. (316-16)This is a fantastic read on the fundamental principles of capitalism, wealth and poverty.
May 31, 2009
Right up there.
October 30, 2013
A singularly important work on the development of economic thought. Prescient when written in 1982. Re-reading it today is a sad commentary on our inability to learn.
December 16, 2021
Originally written in 1981, and updated in 2012, this book is still currently relevant. His predictions of 1981 concerning big gov't crowding out the private sector came true, and the economy's ability to create wealth is being strangled. It was noticeable by 2012, even more so by this current day. The gov't takes care of itself first. Well worth a read if you are interested in how the USA got to where it is at today.
October 3, 2024
George Gilder has a lot to say and employs a vocabulary full of zesty words to say it. I consider myself to be fairly educated in the vocabulary department, and I had to look up lots of words as I read along. Words like “inchoate,” “pettifoggery,” and “noosphere,” to name a few.
As to the book itself, as far as I could understand it, I liked it quite a lot. That qualifier is important - much of the content sailed over my head like inchoate clouds. I underlined sentences on every page, gamely hoping that if I underlined it, I might (a) remember it, and (b) understand it better. But I don’t want to stoop to pettifoggery in this review (or what is not really a review, but a lot of nonsense passing for a review). The general noosphere agrees that this is a stellar book giving a robust view of what capitalism really is and how it benefits any society that undertakes to employ it correctly.
Don’t forget “Say’s Law” - I kept running into it and finally wrote the definition down in the front of the book as a quick reminder: “Supply creates Demand.” So simple and yet I kept forgetting it. My brain is not helping me here. By the way, the corollary of Say’s Law is “Subsidized supply destroys demand.” I’m not sure you need to know much more than those two things to have an informed view of economics.
As to the book itself, as far as I could understand it, I liked it quite a lot. That qualifier is important - much of the content sailed over my head like inchoate clouds. I underlined sentences on every page, gamely hoping that if I underlined it, I might (a) remember it, and (b) understand it better. But I don’t want to stoop to pettifoggery in this review (or what is not really a review, but a lot of nonsense passing for a review). The general noosphere agrees that this is a stellar book giving a robust view of what capitalism really is and how it benefits any society that undertakes to employ it correctly.
Don’t forget “Say’s Law” - I kept running into it and finally wrote the definition down in the front of the book as a quick reminder: “Supply creates Demand.” So simple and yet I kept forgetting it. My brain is not helping me here. By the way, the corollary of Say’s Law is “Subsidized supply destroys demand.” I’m not sure you need to know much more than those two things to have an informed view of economics.
August 5, 2020
Painful. It was like glimpsing the mind of primitive man.
I have nothing good to say about communism except that, to some, it seemed plausible enough to actually give it a try. The type of fundamentalist free-marketism advocated by this book has never been tried. There has never been a government mad enough, as far as I'm aware, for the obvious fact that it is doomed to violent failure. If I wanted a bloody revolution I would advocate Gilder's policies.
I read this because I found his Google book entertaining but this one isn't even that. It's deeply offensive in a way that old white privileged males never understand. Because I am not a racist, racism doesn't exist. Because I have never been raped, rape counselling is trivial. And because I am rich, everyone can be rich if they were like me. And because I am a man, I am right.
There are many fallacies in this book, but one that struck me as particularly moronic was the idea that the regulation of new drugs was somehow an unnecessary check on innovation. The burden of proof of the product's safety should not be put on the manufacturer. That's fine if you want to live in that sort of world (look how well the libertarians are responding to a pandemic) but, ultimately, it's Gilder's beleaguered tax-payer that has to foot the bill when things go wrong. Regulation is there to reduce the chance of that happening.
Anyway, there's no point getting heated about it because the book is only a curiosity. It is as relevant as Plato's Republic.
I have nothing good to say about communism except that, to some, it seemed plausible enough to actually give it a try. The type of fundamentalist free-marketism advocated by this book has never been tried. There has never been a government mad enough, as far as I'm aware, for the obvious fact that it is doomed to violent failure. If I wanted a bloody revolution I would advocate Gilder's policies.
I read this because I found his Google book entertaining but this one isn't even that. It's deeply offensive in a way that old white privileged males never understand. Because I am not a racist, racism doesn't exist. Because I have never been raped, rape counselling is trivial. And because I am rich, everyone can be rich if they were like me. And because I am a man, I am right.
There are many fallacies in this book, but one that struck me as particularly moronic was the idea that the regulation of new drugs was somehow an unnecessary check on innovation. The burden of proof of the product's safety should not be put on the manufacturer. That's fine if you want to live in that sort of world (look how well the libertarians are responding to a pandemic) but, ultimately, it's Gilder's beleaguered tax-payer that has to foot the bill when things go wrong. Regulation is there to reduce the chance of that happening.
Anyway, there's no point getting heated about it because the book is only a curiosity. It is as relevant as Plato's Republic.
November 9, 2023
Second reading, this time the updated version. George Gilder is among the very best defenders of capitsalism writing. He understands the economics and explains them both i detail and with clarity. And he understands the moral issues as well and explains and defends them even more strongly.
This is a very important book and I highly recommend it to everyone interested in how the world really works, and why it works that way, and how we should act to take advantage of that to make the world an infinitely better place.
This is a very important book and I highly recommend it to everyone interested in how the world really works, and why it works that way, and how we should act to take advantage of that to make the world an infinitely better place.
August 15, 2015
Absolute rubbish conservative dogma. If this is supposed to be one of the more "intellectual" justifications of supply side economics it's a miserable failure. Not only are the book's economic data woefully outdated, given that it was written in the early 1980s, Gilder's preening about minorities, singles, women, etc. and how they need strong male breadwinners/strong traditional families just rubbish.
October 13, 2014
Mr, Gilder dismisses the controlling economic policies of the Left, offers instead an American vision of a free economy and a prosperous society resting on the pillars of work, faith, and family. Some areas were difficult to follow but overall very understandable.
July 1, 2019
Very good book on supply side economics. I particularly like how he sets the nuclear family as the basic economic unit of societies. Without families, you don't have an economy, you don't have societies. Without families you have disorder, you have chaos.
January 6, 2022
If you’re going to make bold claims you should probably back them up with some solid data, instead Gilder just spouts economic fantasies as if they’re facts whilst spouting some Charles Murray type shit about black people. Books like these are about as real as Scientology.
August 26, 2012
Read this many moons ago. It among others made me think, and explore ergo the youth matures into a free-market thinker.
November 10, 2014
Eye opening and something to come back to often.
Read
September 6, 2015Must read for conservative thought
February 14, 2014
Brilliant! This book is an amazing look at economics and the factors that affect productivity and economies in both positive and negative ways.
September 2, 2014
. George is the most visionary in the realm of innovation and progress.
September 4, 2014
His financially conservative concepts are proving to be more relative with the passing of each day.
August 18, 2020
I read this during my brief flirtation with conservative politics. I bought it hook, line and sinker. Today, I don't even remember what the thesis is.
July 18, 2022
Productivity and Supply Side; The Laffer Curve; Demand-pull, Cost-push and Tax-push inflation; and the inability of central economic planning to account for or promote creative innovation.
Marx, however erroneously located the means of production in the material arrangements of the society rather than in the metaphysical capital of human freedom and creativity. The problem of contemporary capitalism lies not chiefly in a deterioration of physical capital, but in a persistent subversion of the psychological means of production – the morale and inspiration of economic man-
The American rich hold not only riches but also wealth. It is in the Third World where the Midis myth bears its grim truth, where governments can make nothing but money and there is little to buy except from abroad, and where all surviving wealth tends to flee into portable baubles and gold. Under capitalism, when it is working the rich have the anti Midas touch, transforming timorous liquidity and unused savings into factories and office towers, farms and Laboratories, orchestras and museums – turning gold into goods and jobs and art. That is the function of the rich: fostering opportunities for the classes below them in the continuing drama of the creation of wealth and progress.
"A private business knows that creating jobs is difficult for failures readily reveal themselves in the accounts. Losses quickly add up, force new efficiencies or compel early bankruptcy. Because of the power of taxation, however government sometimes can imagine that the process is easier in the public sector that it is “creating” jobs or producing goods and services when in fact it may be merely wasting or consuming wealth, with the net effect of destroying jobs in the economy."
“But economists make an only slightly lesser error when they add up capital quantities and assume that wealth consists mainly in machines and factories. Throughout history from Venice to Hong Kong, the fastest growing countries have been the lands best endowed not with things but with free minds and private rights to property. Two of the most thriving of the world’s economies lost nearly all their material capital during World War II and surged back by emancipating entrepreneurs.”
" There is a paradox of redistribution. Beyond a certain point already reached in most modern democracies, raising the taxes on high incomes leads to more, not less luxurious living by the rich, and less not more support and opportunity for the poor…The chief effect of steeply progressive tax rates is to lower the price of luxury and leisure in relation to investment and work.”
“Governments everywhere are torn between the clamor of troubled obsolescence and the claims of unmet opportunity…Socialist and totalitarian governments are doomed to support the past. Because creativity is unpredictable, it is also uncontrollable.
Marx, however erroneously located the means of production in the material arrangements of the society rather than in the metaphysical capital of human freedom and creativity. The problem of contemporary capitalism lies not chiefly in a deterioration of physical capital, but in a persistent subversion of the psychological means of production – the morale and inspiration of economic man-
The American rich hold not only riches but also wealth. It is in the Third World where the Midis myth bears its grim truth, where governments can make nothing but money and there is little to buy except from abroad, and where all surviving wealth tends to flee into portable baubles and gold. Under capitalism, when it is working the rich have the anti Midas touch, transforming timorous liquidity and unused savings into factories and office towers, farms and Laboratories, orchestras and museums – turning gold into goods and jobs and art. That is the function of the rich: fostering opportunities for the classes below them in the continuing drama of the creation of wealth and progress.
"A private business knows that creating jobs is difficult for failures readily reveal themselves in the accounts. Losses quickly add up, force new efficiencies or compel early bankruptcy. Because of the power of taxation, however government sometimes can imagine that the process is easier in the public sector that it is “creating” jobs or producing goods and services when in fact it may be merely wasting or consuming wealth, with the net effect of destroying jobs in the economy."
“But economists make an only slightly lesser error when they add up capital quantities and assume that wealth consists mainly in machines and factories. Throughout history from Venice to Hong Kong, the fastest growing countries have been the lands best endowed not with things but with free minds and private rights to property. Two of the most thriving of the world’s economies lost nearly all their material capital during World War II and surged back by emancipating entrepreneurs.”
" There is a paradox of redistribution. Beyond a certain point already reached in most modern democracies, raising the taxes on high incomes leads to more, not less luxurious living by the rich, and less not more support and opportunity for the poor…The chief effect of steeply progressive tax rates is to lower the price of luxury and leisure in relation to investment and work.”
“Governments everywhere are torn between the clamor of troubled obsolescence and the claims of unmet opportunity…Socialist and totalitarian governments are doomed to support the past. Because creativity is unpredictable, it is also uncontrollable.
December 7, 2018
This is feverishly fun and academically refreshing work from George Gilder. His manifesto has actually been somewhat revelatory for me in ways- fed a steady diet of champagne socialism and political liberalism from an early age as I have been, in Ireland and now in Britain. (From the culture and political parties across the board.)
Not only that, but most Christians or non-Christians I know equally accept, and pretty unquestioningly, the basic dogmas and doctrines of people like Karl Marx, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and one or two high priests of the newer secular religions; whose views are sifted through here with light but acute analysis. Gilder's visionary tract is a fine antidote to all of that and a thankfully rare combination of Christian social conservatism and well-argued fiscal liberalism.
The author shifts us away from common trite and ingrained patterns of thinking about progress and opportunities, problems and remedies, to open up a space to roam for differing and more realistic viewpoints. These views should really be free from dogmatic political pogroms but he also shows in this very work why they wont.
More negatively from my perspective, Gilder is perhaps too optimistic about 'the future' in the light of his 'faith' and waxes on about it's ultimate struggle with 'the past' in a dichotomy. This is intriguing but probably in certain respects a false metaphysic and too utopian for my tastes. Furthermore, I wouldn't bear witness to his categories for success without giving them prudent place in light of the Gospel, whether that be individual or social. There are arguments in the book which point beyond itself in this relation and ultimately we are worshipping creatures after all, who constantly fail to worship the right thing- as The Scriptures and James KA Smith make clear.
However, George's prescient presentation is bracingly and justly assured overall... smart, well-written and enlightening in it's venturing through infrequently interesting and underexplored caverns; especially for someone from my background looking to hear another viewpoint.
Not only that, but most Christians or non-Christians I know equally accept, and pretty unquestioningly, the basic dogmas and doctrines of people like Karl Marx, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes and one or two high priests of the newer secular religions; whose views are sifted through here with light but acute analysis. Gilder's visionary tract is a fine antidote to all of that and a thankfully rare combination of Christian social conservatism and well-argued fiscal liberalism.
The author shifts us away from common trite and ingrained patterns of thinking about progress and opportunities, problems and remedies, to open up a space to roam for differing and more realistic viewpoints. These views should really be free from dogmatic political pogroms but he also shows in this very work why they wont.
More negatively from my perspective, Gilder is perhaps too optimistic about 'the future' in the light of his 'faith' and waxes on about it's ultimate struggle with 'the past' in a dichotomy. This is intriguing but probably in certain respects a false metaphysic and too utopian for my tastes. Furthermore, I wouldn't bear witness to his categories for success without giving them prudent place in light of the Gospel, whether that be individual or social. There are arguments in the book which point beyond itself in this relation and ultimately we are worshipping creatures after all, who constantly fail to worship the right thing- as The Scriptures and James KA Smith make clear.
However, George's prescient presentation is bracingly and justly assured overall... smart, well-written and enlightening in it's venturing through infrequently interesting and underexplored caverns; especially for someone from my background looking to hear another viewpoint.
November 2, 2019
Wealth and Poverty is one of the most unique arguments for capitalism I've seen in a long while, it is a book less about the facts and more about the underlying principles of how an economy functions. I think certain areas are argued in unnecessarily long-winded chapters, when a shorter or different pacing would have served it better. But even so, overall I really enjoyed this. This is definitely the kind of book you read over the course of a month or two, not over a weekend. Give it a chance, each individual argument seems rather unimportant or unfounded on its own, but the last chapter really ties it altogether. This is a book about principles and theory, it draws from history when it makes sense, but don't expect analysis on major studies on economic ideals. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to understand another argument for a free market. You may not agree, but you won't regret it.
May 8, 2020
Absolutely brilliant. I use that phrase to describe both George Gilder and this book of his. I would that everyone read and understand this book. Gilder helped me on matters of not only economics and politics, but philosophy and even eschatology. It was just really good.
I do have to admit that I got a good deal lost toward the middle when he was deep into the relationship between tax policy and inflation. I feel that what he was saying was important and that I would agree with it as well, but wasn't able to keep up with all the threads. The first third of the book was marvelously clear and helpful, and if I understand his conclusion correctly, the importance is enormous.
I'd like to go on, but would only end up doting, and that's not going to be of any use. In sum, my thoughts on this book are: someone put Gilder in charge and I think he'll get us out of some messes in a jiffy.
I do have to admit that I got a good deal lost toward the middle when he was deep into the relationship between tax policy and inflation. I feel that what he was saying was important and that I would agree with it as well, but wasn't able to keep up with all the threads. The first third of the book was marvelously clear and helpful, and if I understand his conclusion correctly, the importance is enormous.
I'd like to go on, but would only end up doting, and that's not going to be of any use. In sum, my thoughts on this book are: someone put Gilder in charge and I think he'll get us out of some messes in a jiffy.
June 20, 2020
I listened to the audio book and the first thing I must say is that Gilder is a racist and he makes some pretty horrible statements in the book.
That being said I believe he is correct regarding what he says about welfare and the War on Poverty and that these programs have done nothing but keep people on welfare and in poverty.
I do agree with Gilder's comments that Government Spending does nothing to add to the GDP of any nation and that the government is inefficient about spending money.
I believe Gilder is spot on regarding his comments about Super PACs which have been created for businesses, special interests, and wealthy individuals to get involved and influence politics for their own benefit.
I disagree with Gilder about debt and government deficits, I believe deficits, during most times are bad for governments and those being governed by a debtor government.
It's hard for me to recommend this book.
That being said I believe he is correct regarding what he says about welfare and the War on Poverty and that these programs have done nothing but keep people on welfare and in poverty.
I do agree with Gilder's comments that Government Spending does nothing to add to the GDP of any nation and that the government is inefficient about spending money.
I believe Gilder is spot on regarding his comments about Super PACs which have been created for businesses, special interests, and wealthy individuals to get involved and influence politics for their own benefit.
I disagree with Gilder about debt and government deficits, I believe deficits, during most times are bad for governments and those being governed by a debtor government.
It's hard for me to recommend this book.
December 3, 2018
A classic which speaks to our present time
Originally written in the late 1970’s, this book has been updated in 2012. It gives a refreshing view of capitalism as founded in altruism and individual entrepreneurship as the driving force to prosperity. The helping hand of government is seen to result in strangulation of individual motivation, as it clamps down on both the wealthy and the poor.
The book is backed up with footnotes and a bibliography. Everyone who claims to want to help humanity and the environment should read it.
Originally written in the late 1970’s, this book has been updated in 2012. It gives a refreshing view of capitalism as founded in altruism and individual entrepreneurship as the driving force to prosperity. The helping hand of government is seen to result in strangulation of individual motivation, as it clamps down on both the wealthy and the poor.
The book is backed up with footnotes and a bibliography. Everyone who claims to want to help humanity and the environment should read it.
April 14, 2018
Difficult to score this. Gilder is brilliant and articulate. Even though I am polar to him in political persuasion, we do have points of commonality: anti-NeoCon, anti-NeoLib, and pro-Entrepreneurial. Our greatest differences? He is a banner waver for White Supremacy and Patriarchy. His style makes these views sound downright scientific. Which to my mind make him downright dangerous.
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