Bourgeois equality
"There's little doubt that most humans today are better off than their forebears. Stunningly so, the economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey argues in the concluding volume of her trilogy celebrating the oft-derided virtues of the bourgeoisie. The poorest of humanity, McCloskey shows, will soon be joining the comparative riches of Japan and Sweden and Botswana. Why? Most economists--from Adam Smith and Karl Marx to Thomas Piketty--say the Great Enrichment since 1800 came from accumulated capital. McCloskey disagrees, fiercely. "Our riches," she argues, "were made not by piling brick on brick, bank balance on bank balance, but by piling idea on idea." Capital was necessary, but so was the presence of oxygen. It was ideas, not matter, that drove"trade-tested betterment." Nor were institutions the drivers. The World Bank orthodoxy of "add institutions and stir" doesn't work, and didn't. McCloskey builds a powerful case for the initiating role of ideas--ideas for electric motors and free elections, of course, but more deeply the bizarre and liberal ideas of equal liberty and dignity for ordinary folk. Liberalism arose from theological and political revolutions in northwest Europe, yielding a unique respect for betterment and its practitioners, and upending ancient hierarchies. Commoners were encouraged to have a go, and the bourgeoisie took up the Bourgeois Deal, and we were all enriched.
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What Hacker News says
- This is one of those long-running debates in the social sciences.
The economist Dierdre McCloskey, for instance, argues forcefully that the revolution started with the idea that all souls weigh the same -- i.e., people are all equal under God. [1]
That conviction led to the belief that people should be allowed to read the Bible for themselves, which led to widespread literacy, which led to a demand for books, which allowed the printing press to survive and spread.
After much to-ing and fro-ing I think I'm more inclined to McCloskey's view, that cultural beliefs and values determine institutions, and so determine which technologies survive and which die out.
Of course these things are not one-way. Technology affects beliefs and institutions. But other things do, too, and McCloskey thinks the other things are at least equally as important.
[1] McCloskey D., Bourgeois Equality.
- >> >He was among the first authors to recognize that knowledge, not labor and raw materials, would become the most important economic resource of advanced societies.
> Under what accounting system is that actually true?
It's not that controversial idea anymore. See, for example [1]
Contrary to economists from Adam Smith to Karl Marx to Thomas Piketty, our riches cannot be explained by the accumulation of capital, as the misleading word capitalism implies. The Great Enrichment did not come from piling brick on brick, or bachelor's degree on bachelor's degree, or bank balance on bank balance, but from piling idea on idea. The accumulation of capital was of course necessary. But so were a labor force and the existence of liquid water. Oxygen is necessary for a fire. Yet it would be unhelpful to explain the Chicago Fire of October 8–10, 1871, by the presence of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere.
[1] "Bourgeois Equality", Deirdre McCloskey, https://reason.com/archives/2016/05/12/bourgeois-equality
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