A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 32 “Bourgeois Shakespeare Disdained Trade and the Bourgeoisie” As Dr. McCloskey has argued in previous chapters, the Great Enrichment that kicks off around 1800 cannot be explained by an improvement in institutions like property rights. In this chapter, she again reminds us of the…
Tag: Bourgeois Deal
Bourgeois Equality
Bourgeois Revaluation Raises, if not Praises, the Merchants
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 28 “The Bourgeois Revaluation Becomes a Commonplace, as in the London Merchant” Dr. McCloskey continues to build her argument that a respect for the bourgeoisie is building in 1700s England, which will allow the Great Enrichment to flourish a century later. She calls this change in…
Bourgeois Equality
Seeing The Bourgeois Revaluation in Literature
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 27 “Defoe, Addison, and Steele Show It, Too” Dr. McCloskey demonstrates the literature of the 1700s shifted to reflect the values and the interests of the rising bourgeois class. This Bourgeois Revaluation is simultaneously esteeming the behaviors that will now lead to success and…
Bourgeois Equality
Continuing Evidence: Rising Bourgeois Values Alters Language
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 26 “And so does the Word ‘Eerlijk’” In many ways this chapter is similar to the previous chapter that traced the change in the definition of honest to show how culture was changing. In the 1500s and 1600s, McCloskey says honest meant aristocratic and…
Bourgeois Equality
Honest? I do not think it means what you think it means
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 25 “The Word ‘Honest’ Shows the Changing Attitude Toward the Aristocracy and the Bourgeois” Dr. McCloskey is moving further back in time in this fourth part of the book to examine societal changes in 1700s England that will lead to the Great Enrichment. There…
Bourgeois Equality
Aspiring to Bourgeois Virtues
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 23 “Ben Franklin was Bourgeois and He Embodied Betterment” and Chapter 24 “By 1848 A Bourgeois Ideology Had Triumphed” Two more chapters to conclude this section of the book establishing the ideas that took root in the 1800s that allowed the Bourgeois Deal to…
Bourgeois Equality
Adam Smith Wanted You Free to Make Your Own Decisions
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 22 “And He Formulated the Bourgeois Deal” In this fourth and final chapter exploring Adam Smith’s impact, Dr. McCloskey explores his intellectual contribution toward a cultural shift to a favorable view of the rising bourgeois class. In the past three chapters, she has been…
Bourgeois Equality
Historically, Poor was Normal
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 1 “The World is Pretty Rich, But Once was Poor” In my teaching and research, I keep coming back to the question of why an economy grows, with the hope of that knowledge helping those that don’t. Dr. Deirdre McCloskey wrote a trilogy of books…