The “information theory of capitalism”, says Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse in this week’s Acton Commentary, upends conventional thinking about free markets and statist economic theories.

Ever since the rise of information theory in the 1940s, it is ing increasingly clear that the universe is, in a sense, digital. Information, logic, data, whatever you want to call it, lies even deeper than the material operations that science has so ably discovered and quantified. This deeper informational dimension is dynamic and unpredictable. It is also how systems (biological, institutional, economic etc.) change and grow.

Gilder applies the principles of information theory to help us understand how economies grow. Known mostly for Wealth and Poverty, a book written over 30 years ago (earning him a reputation as “Ronald Reagan’s most quoted economist”), Gilder lays out what he calls the sum of all his work: Information, not the management of processes, creates economic growth.

The full text of the essay can be found here. Subscribe to the free, weekly Acton News & Commentary and other publications here.