Saturday, September 28, 2019

The clerisy says that markets and liberty are dangerous.

From Bourgoise Dignity - Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World by Deirdre N. McCloskey. Page 45. Chapter 4.
The clerisy’s anti-innovation and anti-market and anti-liberty rhetoric in the years since 1848, though repeated down to yesterday, unwisely mistakes the scientific history. The clerisy says that lack of elite control of human breeding will cause the race to degenerate. Scientific genetics suggests that it does not. Human abilities flourish from diversity. The clerisy says that innovation impoverishes people. Scientific economics suggests that it does not. It enriches most of them. The clerisy says that state planning or nationalist mobilization is better than voluntary commercial peace. Scientific history suggests not. Socialism and nationalism have regularly disrupted the prosperity provided by commerce. The clerisy says that the modern urban world is alienated. Scientific sociology replies on the contrary that bourgeois life has strengthened numerous if weak ties and has freed people from village tyrannies. The clerisy says that markets and liberty are dangerous. Political science suggests that on the contrary they give ordinary people dignity and make them mild and tolerant by the standards of alternative arrangements.

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