Apr

18

The Bourgeois Virtues

April 18, 2023 |

The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce shows the contributions of entrepreneurs and private property especially originating in the Netherlands.

One can admire, appropriately, the entrepreneurial vigor of heroic figures, an in 1958, for example, the Austrian sociologist and anthropologist Helmut Schoeck did: "We tend to forget that mankind's emergence from stereotyped and stagnating ways of life, on low subsistence has exclusively depended on the emergence of independent and enterprising individuals…who had enough resistance to escape from social controls… imposed in the name and interest of 'the whole society.'"
– Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Bourgeois Equality

McCloskey makes the point that it is the emphasis and praise of society for entrepreneurs like Jobs and Musk that creates the benefits and material well-being of society.

It is clear that we are in the opposite kind of society now where entrepreneurs are vilified and held up to scorn — as witness that no bio of Baron Coleman. and countless other great benefactors who start businesses are ignored. yet the death of the most minor actress or sports figure is cause for great acclaim and promotion.

nobody asked me, but…Gunsmoke and The Collected Stories of Jack Schaefer cover the same 1860-1880 period, but Schaefer's stories are much more poignant.

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