Members with This Book
Most Helpful Reviews
see all reviews
Liked It “This book was transformative in my thinking almost to the degree of Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics." But where "Basic Economics" explained the mechanics of the market economy, "Wealth and Poverty" explains the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the same. I give this my highest...” see full review » see other reviews » |
Newest Reviews
see all reviews-
“This book was transformative in my thinking almost to the degree of Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics." But where "Basic Economics" explained the mechanics of the market economy, "Wealth and Poverty" explains the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the same. I give this my highest recommendation with one caveat: it's a "challenging" read. Not in the dryly academic style of Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions" (of which I still have only read about half-way through)--just extremely dense and, at times, pedantic. Nevertheless, this is one of the most important books I have ever read on the related topics of culture, economics, and philosophy.”
Don M wrote this review Saturday, October 24 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Make sure your read this edition of the book. 1981 copyright.”
Ed K wrote this review Wednesday, June 10 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“I can't explain the impact this book had on my worldview. Perhaps the best I can do is duplicate what I wrote in the Preface to my book, Mind Over Matter, which I had the honor of giving George Gilder a copy of myself:
Ron B wrote this review Monday, February 18 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
"I gradually became aware of a chink in the armor of accounting in 1981, my sophomore year in college. I was studying to become a Certified Public Accountant, believing it would allow me to do anything I wanted in the world of commerce since everyone kept telling me it was the language of business. I was being taught the importance of proper accounting in operating a successful enterprise, from the definition of profit to the necessity of cash flow. It was a body of knowledge, a tangible reality I could grasp, a prism in which the world of enterprise I so admired could be refracted so as to make sense to a naïve student who believed he knew more than he did.
One of the problems with education is the constant pursuit of practical knowledge at the expense of pursuing answers to profound questions. No doubt we all need practical knowledge to function in everyday life, earn a living, to just get by in the world. But I now realize people are not guided by what they know, but rather what they believe––their worldview, through which we all refract reality. And in August of 1981, my worldview was about to be punctured permanently, albeit quite gradually, indeed, imperceptibly at the time. Looking back, Playboy magazine may be most responsible.
No, not for the prurient reasons you are forgiven for immediately thinking of, but a far more banal explanation. As a barber, my Father was an inveterate reader of Playboy’s interviews, which are excellent if you have ever bothered to read one with someone in whom you have an interest. The roster of interviewees is quite impressive––world leaders, politicians, writers, and so forth––some of whom, no doubt, are self conscious about appearing in such a publication. As a matter of fact, when devout Catholic William F. Buckley, Jr. was asked why he would write for such a magazine, he wittily answered, “I write for Playboy because it is the fastest way to communicate with my seventeen-year-old son.”
In any event, my Father read the interview with George Gilder in that August 1981 issue, which impressed him. Gilder had written Wealth and Poverty, a book Ronald Reagan was photographed with, along with giving it to members of his cabinet. It is little remembered, but Reagan had a degree in economics from Eureka College, translating into a lifelong fascination with the writings of economic thinkers. For some reason, my Father was impressed with the Gilder interview, explaining to me over lunch how this author had read over 200 books to write his, and was being hailed as the most articulate, albeit amateur, supply side economist in the country. Needless to say, I was not too impressed, pompously explaining to my Dad how there are many crackpots who write economics books, most of which are useless, wrong, or belong in the fiction section of bookstores. I was mired in the mentality that only academic credentials lend credence to anyone writing on economics. Sure, Gilder may have been a graduate of Harvard, but he was not a professional economist such as Milton Friedman, whose book Free to Choose I had read the year before, which made a lasting impression on my worldview.
Fortunately for me, my Father persisted, purchasing a copy of Gilder’s book, convincingly insisting I should read it. I did. In one sitting. It changed my life. It opened my eyes to an entire new worldview that is beyond my capacity to describe in so brief a space. Little did I understand, but that was the sound of the first chink in the armor.
Mind Over Matter brings me full circle to that first sitting of reading Gilder’s penetrating insights. It is a journey I have partially written about in the Preface’s of the first two books in the Intellectual Capitalism Series, illuminating the opportunity cost of the accounting career I chose, which was the road not taken––that of the economist. I traded away, for the ability to capture and record the historical cost of everything, an understanding of the nature and origins of value, wealth, and poverty. It was not until later in my career, after I left the then-Big Eight accounting firm of KPMG that I understood this opportunity cost was increasingly becoming prohibitive.
I came to recognize I was ensconced in the accountant’s worldview, a belief system and body of knowledge that cannot really explain how wealth is created––it can only record it after the fact. Accounting is not a theory, so it cannot help us peer into the future; it can only provide assurance on the past. It understands nothing but itself, since it is an identity equation. Worse, it leads businesspeople to believe they can only manage what they can measure, as if weighing ourselves more frequently will change our weight. It confuses cause and effect, and results with process. It can audit the drunk’s bar bill, but cannot change or explain his behavior. Even more pernicious, it focuses businesspeople on solving problems and fretting over yesterday, rather than pursuing opportunities and creating our futures, resulting in a costly mediocrity.
I will always remember a conversation I was having over the audit of a genetic laboratory customer we had at KPMG, one that was working on a cure for AIDS. Of course, the losses in this start-up were as illustrious as the scientific credentials of its shareholders and board members. As we were poring over the balance sheet––bayoneting the wounded after the battle, as it were––I turned to my senior manager and said, “But you realize the most important assets of this company will never appear on its balance sheet, such as the intangibles of its employees and its entrepreneurial spirit.” I didn’t use the terms intellectual or human capital back then, since an accountant’s world is divided neatly into tangible versus intangible. Nevertheless, the manager cocked his head, giving me one of those RCA Victrola dog looks, and said “That’s an excellent insight.” I scored big points with that sagacity, impressing my superiors, but it was at the expense of my accounting worldview. Chink, crack. The armor was in scraps.
Thus began a passionate study of value, effectiveness, intellectual capital, along with the real source of profits, all represented in the new business equation that each book in the Intellectual Capitalism Series expounds upon. The Philosopher Heraclitus wrote, “You cannot step in the same river twice, because by the second step it will already have changed.” Thus began my crossing of the river to reach the other side, seeing the world from a different direction––one of value, opportunity, and risk taking, rather than history, costs, problem solving, and an increasingly irrelevant accounting equation. I must say, this side of the river is more wondrous and panoramic, allowing me to explain to myself with much greater clarity how the world really works. This is the only reason I write books––to help me explain the world I live in, while helping me think and constantly challenge my beliefs, subjecting them to the empirical test of reality.
It was not until the early 1990s that I began to fully comprehend that we had shifted from a service to a knowledge economy, comprised of knowledge workers who are different from industrial or service workers of a bygone era. They now comprise some 30 percent of the labor force (up from about 17% in 1950), but create the overwhelming majority of the value for most organizations. This is a lesson, I am painfully reminded of everyday, my colleagues in professional knowledge firms have still not learned. They are walking around with an errant worldview, at a cost that is simply incalculable. If my books can challenge that worldview, even if only in the infinitesimal way Gilder’s did to mine, they will have achieved their purpose."
I strongly recommend anything by Gilder. This was the book that started it all.
”
Displaying 1-3 of 3
