Reflections on The World After Capital

Albert Wenger's The World After Capital is a thought-provoking treatise that explores the implications of the transition to the Knowledge Age.

Wenger advances the argument that during this transition, scarcity is shifting from capital to attention, and that three individual freedoms need to be expanded: economic, informational, and psychological.

Notably, political freedom is absent from this list; and that made me think about Viktor Shvets's book The Great Rupture, which explores history and technological/economic trends to probe the question: do we need to be free?

Like Shvets, Wenger makes a compelling case for universal basic income.

A few questions I had after reading:

• Is it the case that we truly have sufficient capital to meet everyone's needs? I am not convinced, especially in the category of 'enablers' (energy, resources, transformation, and transportation). Technological progress is often contingent on advancements in the material/atomic world, which generally rely on capital-intensive production processes. For instance, the IEA estimates that 30 to 50 new mines are needed to meet projected demand for lithium (with each mine taking 4 to 20 years to come online, plus 10 more years to reach nameplate capacity); ubiquitous EV adoption faces real constraints.

• Do we have the right capital stock for generalized abundance? While the world may have sufficient capital stock for agriculture, clothing, etc., capital stock isn't a commodity. How does specialized manufacturing impact the thesis?

• What of property rights? Who owns the capital stock during and after the transition to the Knowledge Age? What happens to the owners? How would Hernando de Soto react to this?

• Do we need to get over privacy? Wenger asserts that 'privacy is fundamentally incompatible with technological progress.' Is that true? I am not convinced that it need be, as cryptographic technologies like zero-knowledge proofs should be able to separate useful data from identity.

I enjoyed the book — and was stoked to read it now that it's available in print.