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Get Ready to Defend the Free Market

06.02.97 | Forbes | Rich Karlgaard

LET'S CLONE GEORGE GILDER. One is just not enough. The original I'd keep in his current job as a technology writer and forecaster of the first rank. Nobody reads the future in atom-sized silicon etchings like George, or can spot a gigadollar sure thing in a queue of photons hustling bits down a fiber line at 186,000 miles per second.

Great stuff. Here is a tip on how to read George's brilliant work in ASAP. Let his keen ideas sink in, to where they become second nature-intuition. Then summon it to shortcut past the background noise of technology news, rumors, product intros, stock panics, hot tips and momentum plays, flaky mergers and levitating IPOs, breezy newsletters and inhaled gas from $3,500 conferences.and all the rest that constitutes the buzz, the flow, and the loop of the technology industry. Get beyond the Web whispers, P.R. whim-wham, trade magazine shouts, hype and bull snort, and you can actually make some money. Yes-even now in this year of drowning tech funds and yanked IPOs. {What bargains!} Or save yourself some money. Armed with Gilderian glimpses into the future, you'll make smarter buys of tech products. That's what George does for us now.

Why clone him? We need George II to pick up where the original left off 10 years ago-really need him, as I'll point out.

In the 1980s, George wrote on economic policy. He eloquently defended the pillars upon which these digital miracles now daily occur...the freedom of scientific inquiry...the right to pursue one's dreams...easy access to investment...the mobility of talent...unlimited choices in distribution and markets... uncapped {and totally awesome} rewards for achievement.

Capitalism, in a word.

It needs defending again.

But admit it. Being like most modern caring people, the word itself, capitalism, makes you.what.itch? Some part of you. Admit it. We can't escape our culture. Our culture is happy to accept the fruit of capitalism, only to spit it back, like some NPR commentator...the entire Greed-Sin, Red-in-Tooth-and-Claw, Orphan-Empty-Porridge-Bowl dreary lecture coming with it.

Know what? Capitalism is not perfect. It rides on flawed human agents&151us. But I'll take it any day. Capitalism is moral. It celebrates diversity, not of color or gender but of something far deeper individual talents and tastes. It asks us to work hard, show discipline, practice thrift, and serve our fellows. Capitalism gives more than it takes. It encourages the winners to reinvest, thus to spread their wealth in the most deserving fashion. It directs the energies of a nation toward production and trade, away from war. These are good things&151who can deny it?

Our culture! Or haven't you noticed? Newspaper and television stories are turning up the heat over "income inequality." The very phrase, income inequality, rather than describing what it is&151a statistical effect of successful people getting rich faster than unsuccessful people getting rich&151takes on a Scrooge pallor. {As if your hard work and success dispatch 20 children to the poorhouse.} A billionaire former currency trader writes an article in Atlantic Monthly implying the moral equivalency of despotism and capitalism and then winkingly denies he said such a thing. But what the heck-we know what George Soros really meant, right? He knows! He was one of them! AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney plans to enlist America's clergy in a fight against free trade and executive salaries. Sweeney is against free choice and some people doing well.

You may ask Why the yap about capitalism's critics? What's this got to do with computers, software, and the Net?

Everything, actually. Computers, software, and the Net now run the economy. Moreover, they throw free enterprise into warp speed. Without mercy or remorse, they slice through decaying business models, defensive managers...they humiliate economies like France's. They quickly reallocate capital to the bold they elevate the industrious they reward lifelong learners.

Which country has benefited the most from this? HintIt's the same place where joblessness is down, wealth is rising and spreading, human life spans are up, etc., etc.

Seems obvious, but the grand argument is not yet won. And since it is not, this set of bad things could happen America loses its heart in the race to apply the new digital tools...catches the French disease...becomes obsessed with income gaps and job protection...seeks a "Third Way"...submits to zero-growth fatalism...elects a class-warrior president...bans encryption and e-cash...attempts a "social justice" surtax on Net use...triggers a spiral...downward...downward...to Depression...trade wars... jingoism...tough talk...saber rattling..."incidents"...War.

It's happened before.