George Gilder

It was probably fifteen years ago that I was at lunch with Banknote Capital’s Jim Fitzgerald. We were finishing up when the conversation shifted to tax rates, at which point Fitzgerald dismissed the notion that lower rates stimulate more work.

To be clear, Fitzgerald was not saying that he opposed lower tax rates. He was and is very much for them. But he was expressing his disdain for the theory that lower rates cause people to work more. In his case, Fitzgerald would work a great deal precisely because there was joy in it.

Still, what he said at the time was jarring. It called into question so much that was accepted wisdom. Gradually it made lots of sense. Tax rates should be low simply because they should be low. After that, it’s perhaps unrealistic to suggest that Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and FedEx founder Fred Smith began to build their remarkable businesses only after consulting the tax code. Work for them was and is similarly joy.

The conversation with Fitzgerald, along with my own evolution on matters economic, came to mind while reading George Gilder’s essential new book, Life After Capitalism. Though Gilder penned what many view as the underlying philosophy of supply-side economics with the brilliant Wealth and Poverty in 1981, in his spectacular 2013 book Knowledge and Power Gilder began to question the “incentive” economics that at least on the surface informs supply-side.

Bret Swanson and John Tamny join George Gilder in a wide-ranging discussion of the future of money—from the dollar to cryptocurrency, and what are the implications for investing, inflation, government spending, and credit.

On April 5th, Steve Forbes, Chairman & Editor-In-Chief of Forbes Media, and Discovery Institute co-founder George Gilder were in Seattle to discuss some of the biggest issues facing today’s economy. Their discussion covered a wide range of pertinent topics–including trade, technological shifts, increased regulatory and tax burdens, and monetary uncertainty. Visit our YouTube channel to watch our taping of Charting a New Course: How New Ideas on Trade & Money Can Revive the U.S. Economy..

I helped Bruce Chapman form Discovery Institute some 25 years ago and over that period, if I may use the term, it has evolved. Bruce and I believe that this evolution expresses an intelligent design, a unified vision that transcends the various programs at Discovery Institute. We do not only believe in intelligent design in the universe; we believe such a design manifests itself across the sciences and pervades economics and culture. Not only is God the creator; but human beings are creative in his image, in the image of the creator. This is a scientific proposition, following the insights of a great new science called information theory. Information theory upholds the idea of a hierarchical universe and underlies all Read More ›