Capitalism without capital
"Early in the twenty-first century, a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest more in intangible assets, like design, branding, R&D, and software, than in tangible assets, like machinery, buildings, and computers. For all sorts of businesses, from tech firms and pharma companies to coffee shops and gyms, the ability to deploy assets that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the big economic changes of the last decade. The rise of intangible investment is, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue, an underappreciated cause of phenomena from economic inequality to stagnating productivity. Haskel and Westlake bring together a decade of research on how to measure intangible investment and its impact on national accounts, showing the amount different countries invest in intangibles, how this has changed over time, and the latest thinking on how to assess this. They explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment, and discuss how these features make an intangible-rich economy fundamentally different from one based on tangibles.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
7mentions
7people
2018–2025years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I found this to be a very good read: https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-without-Capital-Intangible...
- Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is absolutely fundamental. Another book I found fascinating is Capitalism without Capital.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capitalism-without-Capital-Intangib...
- The authors of Capitalism without Capital would argue that Starbucks are reaping the rewards of their investment in their process as illustrated by the staff manual that sibling comment mentions (just finished reading the book - really thought provoking).
There is a new coffee shop in the Digbeth area of Birmingham UK that appears to be family run and independent. I shall keep an eye on how they are going. Already there is a '10% student discount' sign on the window in felt-tipped pen (Birmingham City University have their Steamhouse project nearby).
- TL;DR: Bill Gates reviews one of his new favorite books, "Capitalism Without Capital". The book extends economic principles to measure value of intangible goods (such as software and online services), which were previously not correctly incorporated in economic models.
- TL;DR: Actually, read this longer thing:
https://smile.amazon.com/Capitalism-without-Capital-Intangib...
- Gates> The second assumption this chart makes is that the total cost of production increases as supply increases.
I think that's a poorly phrased segway.
What he actually seems to be talking about later is that marginal cost flattens after some number of units, but then continues at a fairly constant level (representative of material inputs).
Contrasting this with software and intangible production, where the marginal cost continues to decrease for much larger scales, before hitting a much lower floor (compute + disk + amortized development + maintenance).
And how the proportion of our economy governed by that different marginal cost vs volume curve has continued to grow. And that this has underappreciated implications on how we design economic law.
As he notes, Capitalism Without Capital is an exploration of this idea that he read and enjoyed.
