The Bourgeois Virtues

The name of capitalism, she points out, was long held in dishonor by those who believed in the triumph of socialism. Yet history has shown that it is capitalism, with all its injustices, that does the best job of improving the lot of the average man. The word bourgeois, which names the human being who creates and is created by capitalism, is overdue for a similar rehabilitation

That's the NY Sun, struggling to "get" Diedre McCloskey's new book, _The Bourgeois Virtues _. At Cato McCloskey herself helps out:

On the political left it has been commonplace for the past century and a half to charge that modern, industrial people are alienated, rootless, angst ridden, superficial, materialistic, and that it is precisely participation in markets that has made them so. Gradually the right and the middle have come to accept the charge. Some sociologists, both progressive and conservative, embrace it, lamenting the decline of organic solidarity. By the early 21st century, some on the right have schooled themselves to reply to the charge with a sneering cynicism, "Yeah, sure. Markets have no morals. So what? Greed is good. Bring on the pizza."

But it's not so.

A little farmers' market opens before 6:00 a.m. on a summer Saturday at Polk and Dearborn in Chicago. As a woman walking her dog passes the earliest dealer setting up his stall, the woman and the dealer exchange pleasantries about the early bird and the worm. The two people here are enacting a script of citizenly courtesies and of encouragement for prudence and enterprise and good relations between seller and buyer. Some hours later the woman is moved to buy $1.50 worth of tomatoes from him. But that's not the point. The market was an occasion for virtue, an expression of solidarity across gender, social class, ethnicity.

Comments

[dearieme]

I grew up in a business family. I have worked mainly in the Universities. It's the latter that have the lower moral standards.

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