A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 35 “The Dutch Preached Bourgeois Virtue” In the mood for some Dutch history? When are you not, am I right? If you are anything like me, your historical knowledge of Dutch history is thin. So in this chapter, Dr. McCloskey is making note of…
Tag: Great Enrichment
Bourgeois Equality
Hierarchy over Innovation for Shakespeare
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. Good Institutions are not Enough — You Still Need Good Ideas…
Bourgeois Equality
Why It Had to Be the British Bourgeois
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 31 “And the Change was Specifically British” This chapter wraps up the 4th part of Dr. McCloskey’s book by asserting the favorable attitude shift towards bourgeois dignity was particularly British in flavor. To put this chapter in context, she is working backwards in time…
Bourgeois Equality
A Sociological Shift, Not a Psychological Change
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 29 “The Bourgeoisie Loved Measurement” and Chapter 30 “The Change Was in Social Habits of the Lip, Not in Psychology” We continue Dr. McCloskey’s dive into why the Great Enrichment occurred when it did because the stories we tell ourselves shape the world of…
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
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. Honest? I do not think it means what you think it…
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
When Earning Money Became a Virtue
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 18 “No Woman but a Blockhead Wrote for Anything but Money” In this chapter, Dr. McCloskey is continuing with the idea initiated the last chapter: Jane Austen illustrates the bourgeois ideals in her writing, though she herself was not bourgeois. Backward History Reveals Why…