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…
Tag: Virtue Ethics
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
We Need to Bring Back Virtue Not Give Up on Economics
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 67 “A Change in Rhetoric Made Modernity, and Can Spread It” This is an historic blog — 67 chapters over nearly 18 months, and now we are at the final chapter of Dr. McCloskey’s Bourgeois Equality! I was drawn to do a chapter by chapter review of…
Bourgeois Equality
The Relative Tolerance of Holland
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 37 “For Instance, Holland Was Tolerant, and Not for Prudence Only” In this chapter, Dr. McCloskey is wrapping up her discussion of the Dutch embrace of the bourgeois virtues by focusing on what impact it had on their relatively higher level of tolerance. To get…
Bourgeois Equality
What Really Motivated the Bourgeois Dutch to Charity
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 36 “And the Dutch Bourgeois was Virtuous” Nearing the end of Part 5, which is concentrating on the rise of bourgeois in the 1500s and 1600s, Dr. McCloskey is focusing on the Netherlands. Last chapter she gave some of the historical reasons bourgeois virtues…
Bourgeois Equality
How the Dutch First Got Bougie
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…
Bourgeois Equality
Accounting Was Sooo Bourgeois
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 34 “Aristocratic England, For Example, Scorned Measurement” Dr. McCloskey continues exploring the cultural mindset of the Elizabethan era of England in this chapter to demonstrate it did not embrace measurement, which is foundational to the launch of the Great Enrichment in the eighteenth century….
Bourgeois Equality
Elizabethan England Esteemed Elites
A Discussion of Bourgeois Equality Chapter 33 “As Did Elizabethan England Generally” Dr. McCloskey is continuing on with the thesis of last chapter, offering examples of Elizabethan writers other than Shakespeare, who valued hierarchy over the disruptive bourgeois virtues that will allow the trade tested betterment system to take off…
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…