A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 66 “What Matters Ethically is not Equality of Outcome, but the Condition of the Working Class” In this penultimate chapter, Dr. McCloskey tackles the idea of equality as a goal. The rising standard of living in the countries that have participated in the Great…
Category: Bourgeois Equality
Bourgeois Equality
Both the Right and the Left Oppose the Bourgeois
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 65 “Despite the Clerisy’s Doubts” Dr. McCloskey continues her discussion of the threats to a continuation of the bourgeois trade tested system of betterment that has given us a 3000% to 10,000% growth in incomes over the past two hundred years. In this chapter…
Bourgeois Equality
Peter Pan Bohemians Think They Know Best How We Should Live
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 64 “Anticonsumerism and Pro-Bohemianism were Fruits of the Antibetterment Reaction” Last chapter, Dr. McCloskey described two alternative deals the clerisy preferred as alternatives to the Bourgeois Deal. The Bolshevik Deal represents attempts at Communism as in the former Soviet Union, and the Bismarckian Deal lives on…
Bourgeois Equality
The Elite Replaced the Bourgeois Deal with Ones that Put Them in Charge
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 63 “The Clerisy Betrayed the Bourgeois Deal, and Approved the Bolshevik and Bismarckian Deals” Finally, we reach the chapter that explains what Dr. McCloskey has been alluding to throughout the book about the clerisy’s change in rhetoric against the Bourgeois Deal. What she calls the clerisy…
Bourgeois Equality
The Great Conversion Threatens the Great Enrichment
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 62 “After 1848 the Clerisy Converted to Antibetterment” As we start Part X, the last part of Dr. McCloskey’s book, she turns to the threats facing the Great Enrichment. She has argued that what allowed the Great Enrichment to take root in England around…
Bourgeois Equality
Most of All, Profit Seeking is Even Good for the Poor
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 61 “And Therefore Bourgeois Rhetoric Was Better for the Poor” As Dr. McCloskey is wrapping up Part IX of her book addressing how both history and economics have been misunderstood, she is arguing against the notion that the worker are living under a “false…
Bourgeois Equality
And Profit Seeking Frees Workers, too.
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 60 “And Liberating in Production” Dr. McCloskey spears “one of the left’s economic dogmas” in this chapter — wage slavery. (p. 569) By dogma she means any “passionate belief held uncritically”. (p. 569) She notes wage slave is defined as “a person who is wholly dependent…
Bourgeois Equality
Profit Seeking is Egalitarian
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 59 “Trade-Tested Betterment is Democratic in Consumption” Sadly (to me as an economist) profit is often taken to be a dirty word, when in fact in a competitive market it is the driver to use our resources most efficiently, creating the most using the…
Bourgeois Equality
The Entanglement of Polanyi’s Embeddedness
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 58 “Yet Polanyi was Right about Embeddedness” Last chapter, Dr. McCloskey argued Karl Polanyi was wrong about his central point that capitalism rising in the 1800s was the first time markets had dominant influence on society. This chapter, she is agreeing with a secondary…
Bourgeois Equality
Polanyi’s Rose Colored Glasses
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 57 “And Many Polanyish Ideas from the Left” Dr. McCloskey critiques the ideas in Karl Polanyi’s 1944 book, The Great Transformation, that she says have shaped ideas about capitalism primarily for those on the left though she demonstrates how these ideas have permeated across the political…