Bourgeois Dignity - Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World (Deirdre N. McCloskey, 2010)

At an overview level most of us are aware that our minds are packed with assumptions - many useful, many just plain wrong.  What turns out to be devilishly difficult:  identifying specific assumptions, why we hold them, why we wish to cling to them.  Especially incorrect assumptions.

I grew up with a pretty typical education.  Inundated during those school years, and thereafter, by mainstream news and information sources.  Also:  most folks with whom I interacted over the years mouthed the same standard narratives - listening to adult conversations while growing up, listening to adult conversations even today.  Result:  nonstop exposure to the standard narratives most of the country lives by.

That's where this book fits for me.  A highly useful discussion not only critiquing standard narratives within the book's scope, but explaining how those narratives came to be "standard," with some thoughts as to why so many are so invested in keeping them so.

McCloskey describes "the great fact" - that no one disputes - that virtually the entire planet lived on $3 per day (or worse) for millennia; that something happened in the Netherlands around 300 years ago - quickly copied and expanded shortly thereafter in England - that this something (or somethings) expanded wealth by at least a factor of 16 (much higher in the wealthiest countries).

As a result, lives are incredibly better in countries where this "something" took hold.  Not perfect.  But "incredibly better" is a pretty fine achievement.  Especially for the poor.  And no one with a shred of knowledge of history - and by that I mean no one - would ever "go back" to live in those allegedly good old pre-innovation days.

[Despite this:  constant disparagement of bourgeois values by the "clerisy":  intellectuals, artists (now including TV/movie types), aristocrats, journalists (not to mention politicians chasing votes from the mass of folks without enough knowledge or interest to think independently of the standard narratives).]

How we explain this "something" that fueled a growth explosion starting ~300 years ago goes such a long way to how we view public policy today.  McCloskey illuminates the basis for many of the standard anti-capitalist (including the "exploitation" hobby horse), anti-growth narratives - fashionable since 1848 (certainly pounded into my head during college and to this day) - this discussion opened up many new ideas for me.

[Interesting:  as wonderful a writer and economist as Marx was, the author explains how Marx was so often just plain wrong on the history (which of course weakens everything else).  In his defense, somewhat:  professional historians didn't really exist in 1848, so he didn't have much good information with which to work.  But the damage has been done in terms of persistent distortion via the clerisy-narrative, down to the present.]

Her own explanation of the primary driver in support of explosive growth:  a new respect, and language, became acceptable in relation to innovation (and innovators) in the Netherlands, then England, then many other places.  It's a compelling, thought-provoking idea.  Give dignity and freedom to the innovators:  and just watch what happens.  McCloskey traces the effect across geographies and timelines.

This book is part of a series; another equally valuable book by this author is discussed here.

Displaying the closing two paragraphs below (though they make much more sense for those that RTWT).