Skip to main content
Tags: israel | george gilder
OPINION

Israel Must Defeat Proponents of Barbarism, Death and Envy

Israel Must Defeat Proponents of Barbarism, Death and Envy

Economist, Writer, Investor and Technology Visionary George Gilder speaks on stage during CoinGeek Conference New York at Sheraton Times Square on October 6, 2021. (Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for CoinGeek )

Ralph Benko By Monday, 09 September 2024 08:52 AM EDT Current | Bio | Archive

George Gilder presents “The Israel Test,” upon passing which the future of civilization depends.

Gilder:

We all depend on a vanguard of visionary creators on the frontiers of creativity and genius. We depend now on Israel and Israel depends in part on us. Israel is the pivot, the axis, the litmus, the trial.
Are you for civilization or barbarism, life or death, wealth or envy? Are you an exponent of excellence and accomplishment or of a leveling creed of troglodytic envy and hatred?

The future of civilization? No exaggeration.

George Gilder may be the world’s most consequential living public intellectual. He has transformed the world repeatedly.

George, old friend and intermittent professional colleague, wrote the million-copy bestseller Wealth and Poverty. It was widely hailed as the “bible of Reaganomics.”

If you weren’t around then or just fell off the turnip truck … Reagan (Gilder was Reagan’s most quoted living author), by following Gilder’s iconoclastic prescription, reversed stagflation.

It’s George Gilder’s world. We just live in it.

When Reagan declared for the presidency in November 1979 the Dow was barely above 800 (not inflation adjusted). Now, following a modified form of the Gilder policy formula, it’s over 40,000.

US GDP then was around $7 trillion, real. Now it nears $23 trillion, real, triple what it then was.

That rather understates the tsunami of prosperity we Voodoo Economists (the dozen or so of us, among whom Gilder was a senior and I, the founder of The Prosperity Caucus, the junior member) created.

Gilder’s recent work demonstrates how this understates our current prosperity better stated in “time-prices” (which he stubbornly refuses to heed me and dub “dynes”): hours of work needed to acquire our necessities, amenities and luxuries as documented in Superabundance, by Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley (to which Gilder contributed the Foreword).

After Wealth and Poverty, Gilder, a preeminent futurist and technologist, wrote many influential works on tech. He continues to be a decisive thought leader, including his annual COSM tech conference held by the Discovery Institute, a crown jewel of think tanks.

Skeptical? Per The New Yorker, Ari Emanuel, who built “a global sports and entertainment conglomerate, with more than six thousand employees in twenty-eight countries,” writes in Medium:

In 1990, I picked up a book by George Gilder called Life After Television. It changed my life.
It caused me to imagine technology that could move so fast that our industry might be gone in a decade or two. Most of the people where I worked couldn’t see that. They bet on the past. Because of George’s book, I bet on the future and left to start my own business.

We didn’t have the words to describe all the inventions George talked about back then like "teleputers" and "channels of information." But today we know them as iPhones and the web. The internet, mobile and streaming revolutions happened just as George predicted.

Still skeptical?

Per Wired, Eric Schmidt, one of the most influential, wealthy (net worth estimated over $30 billion) and respected technologists in the world: “I listen very closely to what George says. ..."

Gilder, typically years ahead of his time, wrote The Israel Test, which he describes as his “best, most passionate, book” in 2009. Ahead of its time, it made few ripples.

The Israel Test’s time is now.

Gilder has now republished an updated version, in the teeth of Israel’s heroic, and, yes, collaterally tragic, confrontation with the modern version of Naziism, Hamas. Gilder:

The survival of civilization depends on suppressing envy and jealousy toward achievement, recognizing excellence wherever it appears and nourishing it until it prevails.

That is the “Israel Test,” inescapable today.

Per Gilder our liberty, our prosperity, our dignity — civilization itself — depends on a small number of innovators and entrepreneurs of which Israel, in particular, and the Jews (among whom I am proud to be counted), in general, are exemplary and existentially necessary.

Now, Hamas’ useful idiots, aka progressives, most obnoxiously exemplified by campus protesters, are propounding the eradication of Jews of the West Bank … and Israel itself … thereby making Palestine “free from the river to the sea.”

Free, that is, of Jews. Behold Naziism 2.0.

Those modern Nazis, Hamas, have seized the upper propaganda hand. I personally have observed up close two of their demonstrations, one in the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., the other in the seizure of Johnson Chapel at my alma mater, Amherst College, during my graduating class’ 50th reunion.

Beautifully choreographed. Also, evil.

Never underestimate the power of narrative, another word for propaganda. Gilder’s The Israel Test provides the decisive refutation of the proponents of barbarism, death and envy.

The Israel Test is the book of the geopolitical moment.

Gilder, once again, is transforming the world.

Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder of the 200,000+ follower "The Capitalist League," is the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $104T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.

© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


RalphBenko
George Gilder may be the world’s most consequential living public intellectual. He has transformed the world repeatedly.
israel, george gilder
872
2024-52-09
Monday, 09 September 2024 08:52 AM
Newsmax Media, Inc.

Sign up for Newsmax’s Daily Newsletter

Receive breaking news and original analysis - sent right to your inbox.

(Optional for Local News)
Privacy: We never share your email address.
Join the Newsmax Community
Read and Post Comments
Please review Community Guidelines before posting a comment.
 
TOP

Interest-Based Advertising | Do not sell or share my personal information

Newsmax, Moneynews, Newsmax Health, and Independent. American. are registered trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc. Newsmax TV, and Newsmax World are trademarks of Newsmax Media, Inc.

NEWSMAX.COM
America's News Page
© Newsmax Media, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Download the NewsmaxTV App
Get the NewsmaxTV App for iOS Get the NewsmaxTV App for Android Scan QR code to get the NewsmaxTV App
NEWSMAX.COM
America's News Page
© Newsmax Media, Inc.
All Rights Reserved