The World After Capital by Albert Wenger

Technological progress has fundamentally altered how humanity lives. When we were foragers, food was scarce. During the Agrarian Age, it was land. Following the Industrial Revolution, capital became scarce. Now, digital technologies have shifted scarcity from capital to attention. Previous shifts have been marked by major crises including wars, famines, and pandemics; our current resistance to change is resulting in the buildup of pressure such as the rise of militant nationalism, increased mass migration, and a growing mental health crisis.

The longer we ignore this by continuing to patch the Industrial Age system, the more we risk a horrific transition. We are dramatically under-allocating attention to threats such as the climate crisis, as well as opportunities such as fundamental research.

Thanks to the great success of capitalism, we are now able to address the scarcity of attention. But markets can’t be used to allocate attention because prices do not and cannot exist for the greatest problems facing humanity, which require our full attention. In order to free up human attention, we must urgently embrace the Knowledge Age.

The World After Capital, written by Venture Investor Albert Wenger, starts by exploring the unique nature of digital technology and how it differs radically from previous technologies. Wenger then provides the philosophical underpinnings for a transition from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age guided by humanism and its values. The World After Capital argues for a dramatic enhancement of economic freedom (through universal basic income), informational freedom (through shifting control of computation to network participants), and psychological freedom (through embracing mindfulness).

The World After Capital provides both a thesis of abstract ideas about the past and future, and actionable steps that each and every one of us can take starting today.