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George Gilder Quotes

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George Gilder, born on November 29, 1939, is an American writer, economist, and technology critic. His works cover economics, technology, and public policy, offering profound insights into free markets and technological innovation.

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Famous George Gilder Quotes

“Enforced by genetics, sexual reproduction, perspective, and experience, the most manifest characteristic of human beings is their diversity. The freer an economy is, the more this human diversity of knowledge will be manifested. By contrast, political power originates in top-down processes-governments, monopolies, regulators, and elite institutions- all attempting to quell human diversity and impose order. Thus power always seeks centralization.”

“In an information economy, entrepreneurs master the science of information in order to overcome the laws of the purely physical sciences. They can succeed because of the surprising power of the laws of information, which are conducive to human creativity. The central concept of information theory is a measure of freedom of choice. The principle of matter, on the other hand, is not liberty but limitation- it has weight and occupies space.”

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

“The most important feature of an information economy, in which information is defined as surprise, is the overthrow, not the attainment, of equilibrium. The science that we have come to know as information theory establishes the supremacy of the entrepreneur because it appreciates the powerful connection between destruction and what Schumpeter described as "creative destruction," between chaos and creativity.”

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

“Unlike an inexorable, Newtonian "great machine", the economy is not a closed system.”

Economy Machines Inexorable

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

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

“The information glut has become a ruling cliche. As all resources - from energy to information - become more abundant, the presure of economic scarcity falls ever more heavily on one key residual, and that single shortage looms ever more stringent and controlling. The governing scarcity of the information economy is time: the shards of a second, the hours in a day, the years in a life, the latency of memory, the delay in aluminum wires, the time to market, the time to metastasis, the time to retirement.”

Years Fall Energy Hours Memories Economy Economic Information Keys Resources Retirement Delay Ruling Wire Cliche Governing Shortage Scarcity Aluminum Residual

Author:George Gilder

“The crucial role of the rich in a capitalist economy is... to invest; to provide unencumbered and unbureaucratized cash.”

Roles Economy Rich Crucial Cash Capitalist Capitalist Economy

Book:Wealth & Poverty

Source: Wealth & Poverty

“Socialism is an insurance policy bought by all the members of a national economy to shield them from risk. But the result is to shield them from knowledge of the real dangers and opportunities.”

Real Opportunity Results Economy Risk Danger Policy Members Socialism Shields Insurance Policy National Economy

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

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

“People cannot be expected to learn one expertise and just apply it routinely in a job. Your expertise is in steadily renewing your knowledge base and extending it to new areas. That lifelong cycle of learning really is the foundation of the new information organization and economy.”

People Jobs Economy Information Areas Organization Foundation Expected Cycles Lifelong Expertise Extending New Information Teachability

Author:George Gilder

“A policy of subsidizing failures will end in an economy strewn with capital-guzzling industries long past their time of profitability - old companies that cannot create jobs themselves, but can stand in the way of job creation.”

Way Long Ends Jobs Past Company Economy Policy Creation Industry Libertarian Profitability Job Creation

Author:George Gilder

“A successful economy depends on the proliferation of the rich, on creating a large class of risk-taking men who are willing to shun the easy channels of a comfortable life in order to create new enterprise, win huge profits, and invest them again.”

Source: Wealth and Poverty: A New Edition for the Twenty-First Century