A classic apology for the view that private property, free labor, free trade, and prudent calculation are the source of most ethical good in modern society. This is a beautifully written paean to the virtues of capitalism. ( )

This is not a usual economic book, it may be even said that ‘The Bourgeois Virtues’ is not about economics but about moral philosophy as it can explain the tremendous economic growth of Europe in the last 200-300 years, which affected the world more than any other event in history since first people left Africa. Moral philosophy is not my kind of reading, but as I started the second volume of the series, ‘Bourgeois Dignity’, I decided to work it through.
A word about the author. Deirdre N. McCloskey, born as Donald McCloskey, had as great change in her views as in her gender: she started as a Marxist, then moved toward Chicago brand of ‘mainstream’ economics and, finally, closer to anarchist-libertarian school of thought. She is a well-known economic historian, her works can be read on her site: http://www.deirdremccloskey.org/
In short, her idea is that bourgeois version of four classic (courage, justice, prudence, temperance) and three Christian virtues (faith, hope, love). She tried to defend these virtues both from the left [after 1848], who say that bourgeois means evil for humanity and the right, who think that prudence alone is enough and those, who are left behind aren’t worth a second thought.
It is quite sad that while she defends the idea that people and not just MaxU-ers made the new better world possible, she doesn’t like to include some behavioral economic studies – libertarians view the idea that the state can improve on individual decisions as a heresy.
Her writing is rich [Deirdre N. McCloskey is Distinguished Professor of English], the list of sources accounts for 32 pages, ranging from Greek philosophers and early church fathers to classic writers (Dickens, Austin), enlightenment and modern philosophers and of course economists.
In order to show both her style and her ideas, I quote at length:
If Smith had been also a modern econometrician he would have put it as follows. Take any sort of willed behavior you wish to understand—brooding on a vote, for example, or birthing children, or buying lunch, or adopting the Bessemer process in the making of steel. Call it B. Brooding, buying, borrowing, birthing, bequeathing, bonding, boasting, blessing, bidding, bartering, bargaining, baptizing, banking, baking.
What the hard men from Machiavelli to Judge Posner are claiming is that you can explain B with Prudence Only, the P variables of price, pleasure, payment, pocketbook, purpose, planning, property, profit, prediction, punishment, prison, purchasing, power, practice, in a word, the Profane.
Smith and Mill and Keynes and Hirschman and quite a few other economists have replied that, no, you have forgotten love and courage, justice and temperance, faith and hope, that is, social Solidarity, the S variable of speech, semiotics, society, sympathy, service, stewardship, sentiment, sharing, soul, salvation, spirit, symbols, stories, shame, in a word, the Sacred. The two-level universe of the axial religions are these, the Profane and the Sacred. The two summarizing commandments, I have noted, refer to the two levels: (1) love God and (2) love your neighbor. As the historian of religion Mircea Eliade put it,“Sacred and profane are two modes of being in the world.”
Economists have specialized in the profane P, anthropologists have specialized in the sacred S. But most behavior, B, is explained by both

This is not an easy read, it urges you to think, to argue, to discuss. ( )

This is a long and wordy book. The idea is to counter the assumption, common among academics, that the merchant, businessman and tradesman is without honor and virtue. It is, according to the author, the first of 4 volumes, although after the first I cannot imagine what is left to say in the next three. McCloskey’s heros are Adam Smith and Aquinas, and she is avowedly Episcopalian, professing a faith in God and the church. Much of her argument is against the project of Kant, endeavoring to put ethics on a foundation of pure reason, or against Bentham, basing ethics on utility. She argues instead for the seven ancient virtues, prudence chief among the virtues for businessmen, and argues that capitalism institutes a respect for these virtues. Almost every chapter of the book addresses a different author, and seems to be a refutation their arguments, sometimes to the detriment of the flow of the argument overall. The style is breezy, easy to read, but with annoying name-dropping references to the thought of this person or that, without explication of what she takes that thought to be. The best summary of the ideas is a quote from Michael Novak at the end: “Commerce requires attention to small losses and small gains; teaches care, discipline, frugality, clear accounting, providential forethought, and respect for regular reckonings; instructs in courtesy; softens the barbaric instincts and demands attention to manners; teaches fidelity to contracts, honesty in fair dealings, and concern for one’s moral reputation.” ( )

per Nick Schulz TCS 11/20/06