Free Enterprise

Michael R. Strain of the American Enterprise Institute has noted: Billionaire innovators create enormous value for society. In a 2004 paper, the Nobel laureate economist William D. Nordhaus found “that only a minuscule fraction” – about 2.2% – “of the social returns from technological advances” accrued to innovators themselves. The rest of the benefits (which is to say, almost all of them) went to consumers. If Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is worth $170 billion, then according to Nordhaus, he’s created over $7.7 trillion in value for society. Bezos has made each American around $23,000 richer. But Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders thinks an innovator’s 2.2 percent is too much. Sanders tweeted “Billionaires should not exist.” Continue reading on Substack.

From A Book with Legs Podcast: Live from the 2024 Smead Investor Oasis, venture capitalist George Gilder joins Bill and Cole Smead to discuss his latest work, “Life after Capitalism,” in which he redefines capitalism as a knowledge-based system. Gilder presents a vision of the future in which technological advances disrupt traditional capitalist structures, emphasizing innovation and knowledge over wealth accumulation. Listen here:

Watch the episode here. I’m talking in this episode with the upbeat and visionary George Gilder, one of America’s leading economic and technological thinkers, and the author of the groundbreaking books, Wealth and Poverty, Knowledge and Power, The Scandal of Moneyand now:  Life after Capitalism: The Meaning of Wealth, the Future of the Economy, and the Time Theory of Money  Co-hosting with me is the equally upbeat and contrarian thinker John Tamny, founder of Parkview Institute, editor of RealClearMarkets and author of the recently published The Money Confusion: How Illiteracy About Currencies and Inflation Sets the Stage for a Crypto Revolution“ Life after Capitalism launches a new economic theory. A key theme of the book is that wealth is knowledge and that the difference Read More ›