Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World

by George Gilder

Overview

Ronald Reagan’s most-quoted living author—George Gilder—is back with an all-new paradigm-shifting theory of capitalism that will upturn conventional wisdom, just when our economy desperately needs a new direction.

America’s struggling economy needs a better philosophy than the college student's lament: "I can't be out of money, I still have checks in my checkbook!" We’ve tried a government spending spree, and we’ve learned it doesn’t work. Now is the time to rededicate our country to the pursuit of free market capitalism, before we’re buried under a mound of debt and unfunded entitlements. But how do we navigate between government spending that's too big to sustain and financial institutions that are "too big to fail?" In Knowledge and Power, George Gilder proposes a bold new theory on how capitalism produces wealth and how our economy can regain its vitality and its growth.

Gilder breaks away from the supply-side model of economics to present a new economic paradigm: the epic conflict between the knowledge of entrepreneurs on one side, and the blunt power of government on the other. The knowledge of entrepreneurs, and their freedom to share and use that knowledge, are the sparks that light up the economy and set its gears in motion. The power of government to regulate, stifle, manipulate, subsidize or suppress knowledge and ideas is the inertia that slows those gears down, or keeps them from turning at all.

One of the twentieth century’s defining economic minds has returned with a new philosophy to carry us into the twenty-first. Knowledge and Power is a must-read for fiscal conservatives, business owners, CEOs, investors, and anyone interested in propelling America’s economy to future success.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621570271
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	06/10/2013
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Part 1 The Theory

1 The Need for a New Economics 1

2 The Signal in the Noise 7

3 The Science of Information 15

4 Entropy Economics 27

5 Romney, Bain, and the Curve of Learning 35

6 The Extent of Learning 47

7 The Light Dawns 57

8 Keynes Eclipses Information 65

9 Fallacies of Entropy and Order 79

10 Romer's Recipes and Their Limits 89

11 Mind over Matter 101

Part 2 The Crisis

12 The Scandal of Money 113

13 The Fecklessness of Efficiency 125

14 Regnorance 135

15 California Debauch 151

16 Doing Banking Right 161

17 The One Percent 177

Part 3 The Future

18 The Black Swans of Investment 197

19 The Outsider Trading Scandal 207

20 The Explosive Elasticities of Freedom 217

21 Flattening Taxes 235

22 The Technology Evolution Myth 241

23 Israel: InfoNation 251

24 The Knowledge Horizon 257

25 The Power of Giving 275

Acknowledgments 285

Glossary 289

Notes 295

Index 331