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Bourgeois Equality (Hardcover)
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Bourgeois Equality (Hardcover)
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There's little doubt that most humans today are better off than
their forebears. Stunningly so, the economist and historian Deirdre
McCloskey argues in the concluding volume of her trilogy
celebrating the oft-derided virtues of the bourgeoisie. The poorest
of humanity, McCloskey shows, will soon be joining the comparative
riches of Japan and Sweden and Botswana. Why? Most economists--from
Adam Smith and Karl Marx to Thomas Piketty--say the Great
Enrichment since 1800 came from accumulated capital. McCloskey
disagrees, fiercely. "Our riches," she argues, "were made not by
piling brick on brick, bank balance on bank balance, but by piling
idea on idea." Capital was necessary, but so was the presence of
oxygen. It was ideas, not matter, that drove "trade-tested
betterment." Nor were institutions the drivers. The World Bank
orthodoxy of "add institutions and stir" doesn't work, and didn't.
McCloskey builds a powerful case for the initiating role of
ideas--ideas for electric motors and free elections, of course, but
more deeply the bizarre and liberal ideas of equal liberty and
dignity for ordinary folk. Liberalism arose from theological and
political revolutions in northwest Europe, yielding a unique
respect for betterment and its practitioners, and upending ancient
hierarchies. Commoners were encouraged to have a go, and the
bourgeoisie took up the Bourgeois Deal, and we were all enriched.
Few economists or historians write like McCloskey--her ability to
invest the facts of economic history with the urgency of a novel,
or of a leading case at law, is unmatched. She summarizes modern
economics and modern economic history with verve and lucidity, yet
sees through to the really big scientific conclusion. Not matter,
but ideas. Big books don't come any more ambitious, or captivating,
than Bourgeois Equality.
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