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The World After Capital

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Technological progress has shifted scarcity for humanity. When we were foragers, food was scarce. During the agrarian age, it was land. Following the industrial revolution, capital became scarce. With digital technologies scarcity is shifting once more. We need to figure out how to live in a World After Capital in which the only scarcity is our attention.

109 pages

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Albert Wenger

4 books15 followers

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5 stars
86 (38%)
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84 (37%)
3 stars
34 (15%)
2 stars
13 (5%)
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6 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
Profile Image for Hákon Gunnarsson.
Author 27 books153 followers
November 14, 2022
In this book Albert Wenger tries to show us what will happen when the age of Capital runs it’s course, and the age of education begins. In many ways it is an interesting book with a lot of interesting points, and I may even read some of it again, but it’s short. I usually think that is a good thing, but here I feel like it is so short that Wenger doesn’t manage to make his case well enough. It’s occasionally like he thinks the reader just knows what he is thinking so he doesn’t have to explain it.

The other problem I have with this book is the tech bias. For example, when he talks about nuclear fusion, it seems like it’s a certain that we will get fusion in time, but it’s actually not. I’m fifty years old, and people were already talking about fusion when I was born. At the time fusion was 20 years away, and guess what, today fusion is said to be 20 years away. Even if they eventually, after having spent even more money on it, figure out how to make it work, there isn’t any guarantee that it will be cheep enough to become a big thing on the energy market.

So there are a lot of interesting things here, and like I said I might read parts of it again, but it has its flaws. For those that liked to read it, you can find it here for free: https://worldaftercapital.gitbook.io/...
Profile Image for Nicholas Chow.
11 reviews4 followers
September 5, 2020
Wenger's book is full of lots of very interesting ideas that have forced me to think deeper about many of my own positions and ideas. However, I found this book to be overly ambitious: he attempts to weave together a huge narrative that I found lacking in execution and rigor. If you browse through it very quickly, it's very easy to see all the progressive topics and nod your head in agreement (which I did in the beginning), but as I slowed down and carefully walked through each component of his arguments, I began noticing more and more holes. Wenger tries to address common criticisms to his arguments, but his rebuttals often reduce to vaguely pointing out how the Knowledge Loop economy or universal basic income (UBI) deals with the problem. He'll often point out how some historical examples are evidence for his point, whereas I could point to another historical example that would counter this exact point. Overall, while the there are bunch of interesting ideas I'll think about further, I found the overall book and its arguments were too "hand-wavy" and non-rigorous.

Side note: this was my first time reading a book on GitBook, and it was quite pleasant! Cool platform!
Profile Image for Darko.
57 reviews2 followers
May 3, 2016
I was left wondering if this book is genius or just overly generic stuff that all of us starry-eyed entrepreneurial types can agree on :) It's rather short, takes maybe 3-4 hours to read. It's quite radical for a VC guy and maybe a bit simplistic but I agree with the theses almost completely so I liked it a lot.

Caveat lector, it's an unfinished book and I tend to avoid those, but I've liked this guy's blog for quite a while (he's a partner at Union Square Ventures) so I gave it a shot. It's missing references and some chapters are obviously going to be expanded but it's completely readable.
98 reviews5 followers
April 15, 2018
Coming from a venture capitalist who funded companies like MongoDB and Etsy, this book is such a great revelation. You would think a VC would argue for more capital creation mechanisms and less government regulations. Wenger instead proposes to move away capital as it is abundant everywhere and embrace pursuit of knowledge. Financial capital in itself is not going to solve climate change, significant loss of jobs due to automation, asteroid strikes, infectious diseases, cancer or poverty. He also proposes to steer a shift from from job-oriented goals to knowledge-oriented goals. For this to happen painlessly, he completely goes off the block and says Universal Basic Income should be provided to everyone. This enables everyone to pursue their own goals which can ultimately increase overall happiness of humanity.

We see an increasing discord between the government and people. Wegner fundamentally thinks this is happening because of the preference we give to capital over knowledge. A very small book in pages but significant work, lot of right questions were asked. Recommended read!
Profile Image for Graeme Roberts.
517 reviews36 followers
February 12, 2017
Thanks to Albert Wenger for developing this structured, open approach to discussing our future. His ideas are excellent starting points, and his heart is big. Bravo!
Profile Image for Sanjay Banerjee.
441 reviews8 followers
March 22, 2023
The author suggests that we are undergoing a momentous transition from an Industrial Age to the Information & Knowledge Age. In this new Age, the world has sufficient Resources and Capital. However, what would be scarce is Human Attention. To meet this Scarcity of Attention and its efficient allocation, 3 Freedoms are going to be critical - Economic, Information and Psychological. The author also proposes a path forward for a successful transition through regulation and self-regulation. It is an interesting proposition which the author says is still work-in-progress but definitely worth a read!
October 7, 2020
I fail to see how this is so well reviewed. My primary explanation for this is that a large proportion of voters are "entrepreneur" groupie's of the author.

I failed to see much intellectual insight in the writing and thought presented. Much of the core thesis is taken from David Deutsch's "The Beginning of Infinity" (and the author acknowledges this, somewhat), whose work does in fact read as a profoundly intellectual and revolutionary piece of art. The components that the author regurgitates, such as "Choice" and "Optimism", read well... I suppose because they are Deutsch's work that discusses how knowledge and persuasion are the fountain of all human progress.

Beyond this, the author has one further insight, which is that the foundation of human revolutions is based upon scarcity. First food, then land, then physical capital, and knowledge. This is not a novel insight, though seemingly a legitimate one. He extends this to the idea that the scarcity of attention will be the next foundation upon which society evolves upon. Unfortunately, the author does not have Deutsch to create his explanations for him here, and thus the supporting arguments presented are lacking in character and depth.

It is overall a weak piece of literature, and equally so presents only a surface level of thoughtfulness. The book is fortunate to have any attention whatsoever likely because the author happens to have made some money bidding up private companies during one of the greatest generational wealth creations in the history of mankind.
Profile Image for Ajay.
254 reviews
February 19, 2018
An interesting concept, this book disappoints with over generalizations, unsupported claims, and a lack of really valuable insight. Still it starts and perhaps advances an important discussion that we need to be having more often.
Profile Image for Sandu MIHAI.
42 reviews4 followers
April 27, 2022
Grație unei mici întâmplări, am luat cunoștință de existența acestei cărți online, publicată sub Creative Commons License. Pentru că există permanent în om dorința de a cunoaște viitorul, o astfel de carte ar trebui să ne trezească cel puțin curiozitatea, dacă nu chiar să ne convingă.

Faptul că tratează un subiect major al evoluției societăților umane, respectiv cea de-a treia mare tranziției, de la Era Industrială la Era Cunoașterii, face din această carte nu doar un reper, ci, prin propunerile pe care le face un posibil ghid al acestei tranziții. Dincolo de soluțiile mai mult sau mai puțin acceptabile pentru elitele politice actuale, principiile de la care pornește analiza n-au cum să poată fi demolate.

Întrebarea de la care pleacă ideea de bază a cărții pornește de la observarea evoluției structurilor sociale umane, și sună simplu: „Care e următorul lucru important pentru omenire, din punct de vedere al organizării structurale?”. Urmărind evoluția istorică, se poate constata că fiecare mare tranziție s-a caracterizat nu doar prin transformări majore ale mentalității, ci și prin mari convulsii sociale, nu odată marcate de violență. Astfel, trecerea de la stadiul de vânători-culegători la cea de agricultori a adus în atenție terenurile necesare cultivării plantelor, pentru ca trecerea de la Era Agrară la cea Industrială să pună accentul pe Capital... Și fiecare din aceste mari perioade s-au bazat pe un ceva anume: în Era Agrară deficitul era acela al pământului, în vreme ce Epoca Industrială a fost dominată de capital.

Ei bine, vrând-nevrând, că ne place sau nu, o nouă tranziție a început deja: trecerea de la Era Industrială la Era Cunoașterii! Sigur, se pune întrebarea ce anume va caracteriza această epocă? E vorba, desigur de... atenție! Captarea atenției publice va fi obiectivul principal al noii epoci. Deficitul de atenție este cel care ne va domina pe noi și pe urmașii noștri. Și vedem deja asta, fie că vorbim de posturile de televiziune sau radio, fie că ne uităm la rețelele sociale ale online-ului. Toți urmăresc să ne țină cât mai mult timp atenți la ceea ce fac, spun, oferă ei. Altfel spus, vor să ne câștige atenția! Și iată, vorbim deci de un „deficit de atenție”, așa cum spune autorul...

Și, pentru că nu e suficientă identificarea unei probleme, valoarea majoră a cărții este aceea de a se constitui într-un ghid ce oferă soluții (viabile sau nu, rămâne de văzut), pentru realizarea unei tranziții cât mai lente la noua Eră a Cunoașterii. Recomand cu căldură citirea acestui recenzumat care a devenit, pe măsură ce lucram la el, mai mult o traducere...

Întregul recenzumat (traducere), aici...
Profile Image for Mark Walker.
63 reviews3 followers
August 7, 2022
In this book Albert Wenger colors outside of the lines with convincing arguments and research. The author portrays the practical possibility of a near ideal world with compelling empirical evidence from today's state of technology. Imagine an environment in which everyone is able to pursue their individual creative energies—that's the world Wenger predicts will occur in the foreseeable future, even citing Keynes' prediction of an economy of leisure.

An essential foundation of this proposal is Universal Basic Income (UBI), a concept sometimes derided by even the most progressive of thinkers. However, Wenger presents as neither a progressive nor from any form of left wing thought—he describes his assessment of the human arc of history from the vantage point of a wealthy investor and entrepreneur. The idea of UBI is just what it says: Basic income, with the option of working in traditional employment if a standard of living beyond basic needs is desired by any individual. This leaves valuable room for creativity, both in areas of art and technological invention. Far from robbing people of their agency and purpose, UBI would free everyone for creative pursuits—and the beneficiaries would be society in general.

The double threats of climate change and populist authoritarianism (not unrelated phenomena) are certainly real, and Wenger offers both incentives and solutions to address these threats. Even if the world takes a (we hope temporary) detour into a darker period of human history, Wenger strikes an optimistic tone in expecting that they will be beaten back in time. The alternative could actually be the end of human existence—that's not hyperbole, considering the climate crisis and today's advanced weaponry.

As humanity has evolved through the Forager age, the Agriculture age, and is now in the sunset era of the Industrial age, Wenger asserts that the Knowledge age is upon us. The sooner we all escape the psychology of the job loop prison of the Industrial age, the sooner humanity will be closer to true freedom. Wenger's predicted world might not be paradise, but its quality of life is far superior to what we have now—let's go there at earliest opportunity.
Profile Image for Petr Meissner.
32 reviews
April 15, 2020
The author pictures a future world around transitioning our still "industrial age" towards a "knowledge age" where an attention is scarce but a capital is sufficient (sufficient does not mean abundant). That is quite well backed by the author and illustrated by how we transitioned into the "industrial age" from an "agrarian" and "forager" ages. It is also already proven in product design and management that the optimizing a "knowledge loop" is much more effective than just focusing on predefined work.
Author suggests how this "knowledge loop" could replace the current "job loop" and what would be the benefits.

The good point is that the author provokes thoughts on how we can improve our world beyond the capital to make it better for all of us. That does not mean we don't need the capital, the same way as we still need and will need an agriculture. The claim is just that the capital won't be the major limiting factor anymore. The limiting factor is becoming our attention. I completely agree this is where we are heading to.

The weak point is a transition how to get there. The simple statement that dirty jobs will be automated and that will enable an universal basic income supported by structural financing changes is simply not enough. This part of the book and argumentation needs more love and work to refine and think through.
The author also makes some premature or incorrect arguments mostly to support why sharing anything without limits is better than restrictions. Although those undermine overall good argumentation they are not essential to the concept and could be just omitted (except for the transition problem mentioned above).

The author claims the book is "work in progress" so I gave him a feedback on the points above and I am curious where will the author push it further.

Definitely an inspiring read if you are willing to tolerate some immature arguments yet to be refined and thought through.
Profile Image for Jo E..
44 reviews2 followers
January 20, 2020
Thought-provoking and an appreciated effort to contextualize the case for Universal Basic Income. Of course, Wenger’s philosophy is broader than any one policy. His call to arms is the societal pursuit of financial freedom, free information flow, and “psychological freedom” (regulation and redirection of desire towards learning, inspiring and creating), in order to accelerate technological progress of many kinds and ultimately preserve our species’ livelihood.

I would like to believe in Wenger’s proposal. I appreciate the courage and open-mindedness that it took to tackle such big problems and outlay such radical solutions. But the gaps between Wenger’s broad strokes of ideation were too large to ignore and I was left unconvinced. (Does evolutionary psychology suggest human readiness for “psychological self-regulation”? How exactly should government regulation against externalities play out alongside a push for decentralized financial systems?).

That might be besides the point, however. After all, predictions are said to tell more about the present world than the future. World After Capital certainly compels the reader to turn a reflective eye to humanity and society today.

I hope that as Wenger continues working on this book, he considers lessons from history - patterns of human psychology, political upheaval - and works to articulate the likely dynamics between seemingly contradictory philosophies in his proposal.
Profile Image for Onno Kampman.
2 reviews
December 4, 2020
Remains an interesting (and quick) read. The way of looking at time periods as defined by scarcities is thoughtful and elegant. From scarcity of food to land to capital (which is not scarce anymore) to the new scarcity of attention. Sense of meaning is related to these as well and we have shifted from building identities around religion or land to being built around work. This shift has made many feel disconnected already (I think it's related to the clash between nationalism and globalism as well), and if we assume that the next industrial revolution will put even more people out of a job, is leading to a collective identity crisis. We are still figuring out what to build our identities around in a post-work society. The book definitely gets too hand-wavy about this. Blaming AI algorithms on social media for the sharp increase in youth depression and suicides is a bit outdated, and to casually imply that UBI will magically transform people from being focused on needs instead of wants is too shallow. The problem with this class of our industrial and intellectual elite is that things are often abstracted to such a high level that they become meaningless. Proposing to solve the Fermi paradox by saying any society will likely collapse under information overload and attention scarcity to existential problems is one of those.
Profile Image for Vincent Tsao.
86 reviews7 followers
September 8, 2021
I came across this book through the blog of Fred Wilson, one of the author's partners at Union Square Ventures. I was immediately intrigued by the premise since it reminded of the Homo Sapiens and Homo Deus books by Yoav Harari. Those are some of my favorite reads, so I knew I had to read this one as well.

Overall, it was a thought-provoking and insightful read. I agree in principle with all of the ideas that were laid out, and I appreciated the clear set of recommendations from the author. Many of these ideas are starting to take hold (accelerated by COVID) and I believe the author's 50 year prediction has a good chance to come to fruition.

My one quibble with the book is that it reads much more like a long-form essay than a fully-formed novel. There were a number of points that would have been benefitted from more detail and more than just one or two examples. I often found myself re-reading paragraphs of supporting evidence (a paragraph about entropy was particularly difficult to follow) and I personally would've benefitted from a bit more hand-holding.

Aside: I thought the use of gitbook to track changes and solicit changes/feedback from the community was a nice touch. It's always good to see VCs actually using the new tech.
Profile Image for Theo Gonella.
17 reviews2 followers
March 28, 2020
Wagner (VC Partner) suggests we're in the transition between the Industrial Age and the Knowledge Age, where it's our attention, not capital, being scarce.
The industrial age (the one we're about to leave) is based on the Jobs Loop: our life purpose is to have a job that lets us earn a living and consume, so to fuel demand for more goods, hence creating more jobs.

Instead, in the age ahead of us, it's Technology who's covering our basic needs (shelter, food, clothes are basically free nowadays apart from markets distortions), so that we can collectively spend more time on another flywheel-style loop: the Knowledge Loop, based on learning, creating and sharing with others the Knowledge we have acquired.

The transition requires government regulation to provide economic (through Universal Basic Income) and informational (no censorship AND less privacy) freedom. But it also requires an individual effort to be aware of the distinction between needs VS wants, and to put our attention into learning, creating and sharing with others.

It's short, and available online for free!
181 reviews21 followers
October 20, 2021
TL;DR: Scarcity is under a paradigm shift, from capital to attention; why that is, what that means for society, and how best to move forward.

Though Wenger never specifically mentioned, web3 is exactly the element behind this magnificent tide transforming society as we knew it. While I’m reading “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, which is a struggle for land in the midst of another scarcity paradigm shift from land to capital, the current capital boom and creator economy make all the world’s sense.

There are some arguments which I don’t completely agree with, such as that labor and population is not a shortage. There are also aspects of the book where he dwells on the Western view of the world. However, for very few books can I say will leave a lasting impact on the algorithm through which I see the world. Highly recommend.
Profile Image for Seth.
13 reviews
April 3, 2018
I read this book after listening to Mr. Wenger get interviewed on the Investor's Field Guide podcast. I find this book / discussion fascinating as we hurl towards greater automation, AI, etc (or as the book asserts post-industrial, digital knowledge age) . Some really timely subjects that are controversial like UBI (universal basic income) that are coming down the tracks that we should all be pondering. I especially like part III on economic, informational, and psychological freedom. Of course there were many parts where I disagree on his vision, premise or suggested paths for society, but for many parts I found myself vigorously agreeing. Overall, very thought-provoking!
Profile Image for MonkeyDa.
2 reviews11 followers
September 20, 2017
A work in progress, World After Capital is interesting to read for anyone looking to understand our society and how it could/should shape up in future.

The book, itself open source, is built around single principle - more power to the people. The digital age allows us to decentralize many institutions that made sense when 1-1, 1-many, many-1 communication was impossible. When trust & reliability identification and confirmation had much higher cost.

If you read the book, be sure to subscribe to it also. This will ensure you are updated as Albert writes/re-writes sections.
13 reviews
January 20, 2019
Attention is the scarce resource in the Knowledge Age; we need to increase freedoms to optimize the transition from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age.

Wow. This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece. He has some pretty "out there" ideas, which I don't normally consider. His idea of transitioning from capital scarcity to attention scarcity is compelling. I'm not sure what I'll do with this idea right now, but I will certainly think about it going forward. I found Wenger's writing to be quite accessible and engaging.
Profile Image for José Amorim.
2 reviews
March 2, 2024
Extensa análise do que nos reserva o futuro. Focado na ideia de que se avizinha uma mudança tão drástica quanto a Revolução Agrária ou a Industrial, analisa todas as variáveis com que a sociedade terá de lidar - e eventualmente resolver - para uma transição pacífica para a Era do Conhecimento. Revela as questões prementes e acima de tudo, procura mostrar-nos que essa transição está ao nosso alcance.
Profile Image for Ryan Rodenbaugh.
29 reviews13 followers
August 2, 2017
I love the idea of a WIP book. Also, I was surprised how little I cared that there were so many XX and YY%. I did not need the exact #'s to understand the points he was trying to make. Hard to give it a "X-Star" rating, since it's a WIP, but I enjoyed it very much and would happily recommend it to others.
Profile Image for Ray.
260 reviews
August 22, 2018
Written from the perspective of a partner at a venture capital firm, this book feels like a great example of forward thinking and acknowledging current issues. This book is essentially about how right now there's a world with a lot of capital available and the big challenge is that human attention is scarce.

This book can be read online for free at https://worldaftercapital.gitbooks.io/
Profile Image for Matthew.
93 reviews
November 7, 2019
This is my first time reading a 'book in progress' on GitBook. Wenger, a VC and futurist, presented his ideas of a world where Capital is not the constrained resource and made a compelling case as to why we're at or near that point.
77 reviews
November 16, 2020
Левацкая ерундистика. Читать интересно. Регулярно поражался мастерству автора сочетать научный подход с высосанными из пальца и выгодными для него безумными выводами. Эта "книга" манипуляция общественным мнением в чистом виде. Грамотная, качественная манипуляция.
Profile Image for Joel.
104 reviews5 followers
September 26, 2017
This book is still a work in progress and quite raw. It's worth a read though, as the ideas it presents are very interesting, if unsubstantiated.
4 reviews
January 13, 2019
Short and sweet, well-structured analysis of what happens next. Will return to this.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews

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