Bourgeois Dignity (Cato Unbound Book 102010)

The making of the modern world is a question of perennial interest. We are, after all, modern. One of the signal developments of modernity is that for the first time, widespread economic prosperity becomes possible. Not all societies attain it, even in the modern world. But only modern societies have done it at all. How did they do it?

Answering this question may do more for human welfare than any other intellectual task before us. What is special about the prosperous modern society? Many answers have arisen. Institutionalist accounts stress law and social practice; Marxists point to proletarian and colonial exploitation; thinkers of a wide variety of persuasions have examined genetic and environmental factors.
In this month's Cato Unbound, we are pleased to offer an iconoclastic view. All previous answers are wrong, says polymath economist Deirdre McCloskey. Professor McCloskey is at the halfway point of a four-part series of books on the rise of the bourgeoisie. In it, she argues that what really changed in the modern world was the rhetoric of economic activity.
Such a bold hypothesis won't stand unchallenged for long, and it's only fair that we've invited several others, each with a distinct viewpoint, to discuss McCloskey's ideas. Economic historian Gregory Clark, science journalist Matt Ridley, and economist Jonathan Feinstein will each contribute a response essay in which they'll examine the rhetoric of bourgeois dignity.