I think you did such a great job at covering the information very well. You talked about details from all over the chapter and brought some great insight to your essay. I was looking back at my essay as I was reading yours, and we talked about very similar things.
I liked how you talked about how it is human nature to want to repay a debt. I never really thought about the human nature aspect of this, but I do think there is a lot of truth in this. Something that you did not quite cover, which is the exact opposite side of the coin then this is that when people give gifts, they are typically giving them with the expectation of a gift in return. I also liked the emphasis you put on how the gift must be of value to the consumer in order for it to require a valuable return. This means that whatever value a gift holds for the receiver is the value to which they will try and reciprocate the gift. This has nothing to do with the actual market value of an item.
capitalism is essentially entrepreneurs who run the economy because of new inventions and their impact on society.
I thought this was really well put and just very simple. Gilder definitely said this in his own words in his original piece, but I liked the way you simplified it. You go on to talk about how entrepreneurs are not in it for the money. This is something that a lot of people misunderstand about capitalists / entrepreneurs. More often than not, the most successful entrepreneurs did not start what they are doing in order to get rich. Typically, they started because they saw a need, they had unique resources, or they had a passion about something in particular.
I am glad that you talked about the idea of the ‘invisible hand”. This is something that I too took a bit of time to discuss in my essay, and I found it very interesting. I think that the idea of the invisible hand goes to show that people's intentions are not really the most important thing to look at. There can be input into the economy put there by someone who is just looking to make a buck, and it can still positively influence the economy if it balances. This is really just saying that we don’t have to think about the balance of the economy and worry about keeping it flowing steadily, it will take care of itself.
One thing that I thought was really significant in this chapter that you did not cover was the whole comparison between socialism and capitalism toward the end of the chapter. Gilder talks about how socialism addresses demand before supply, which as you mentioned in your essay, in capitalism, supply happens first and then reciprocation follows. Capitalism is based on trusting the fellow members of society and socialism is based on strategic planning of every economic shift.
Overall, I think you did a great job covering the material from this chapter and I enjoyed reading your post.