A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge
George GilderRead
A policy of subsidizing failures will end in an economy strewn with capital-guzzling industries long past their time of profitability - old companies that cannot create jobs themselves, but can stand in the way of job creation.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Subsidizing failing businesses hinders economic growth and job creation.
George Gilder's quote underscores the negative impact of government policies that support failing businesses through subsidies. Such practices can lead to an economy burdened by outdated companies that consume resources without contributing to innovation or job creation, ultimately stifling entrepreneurship and growth within more dynamic sectors.
Themes
SubsidiesEconomyJob CreationBusinessInnovation
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on government spending, one might use this quote to argue against supporting failing industries.
More from George Gilder
All quotes →Similar quotes
If you're totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.
Jimmy CarterRead
Addressing the weaknesses of capitalism will require us, above all, to do two things: first, to take a long-term perspective, and second, to re-set the priorities of business.
Paul PolmanRead
When money is controlled by a few it gives that few an undue power and control over labor and the resources of the country. Labor will have its best return when the laborer can control its disposal.
Leland StanfordRead
Money never seems to be interested in strengthening regulatory agencies, for example, but always in subverting them, in making them miss the danger signs in coal mines and in derivatives trading and in deep-sea oil wells.
Thomas FrankRead
When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.
Thomas PikettyRead
What Wall Street and credit card companies are doing is really not much different from what gangsters and loan sharks do who make predatory loans. While the bankers wear three-piece suits and don't break the knee caps of those who can't pay back, they still are destroying people's lives.
Bernie SandersRead