REVIEW: Deirdre McCloskey's 'Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World'

REVIEW: Deirdre McCloskey's 'Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World' - I note how very eager, and often capable, the Irish are in defending their own positions, both in the ring and here in the ivory towers of the Academy - McCloskey in this very lengthy survey of ideas about the origins of the Industrial Revolution, in turn criticizes or commends the arguments of many other thinkers, giving the reader (willing to wade through her digressive prose) a thorough education in how modern economists and economic historians approach this fundamental period in the history of the West - McCloskey somewhat riskily adopts a 'method of elimination' for proving her own theories, thus not actually giving much evidence for believing that 'increased bourgeois dignity' and 'increased liberty' were present (causally, and not just correlationaly) during the time period under examination, 1700-1850, but merely being content primarily to criticize the weaknesses of OTHERS instead - McCloskey errs in dismissing the importance of property rights, imagining that they can somehow be distinguished from liberty, when in fact they are exactly the same. In addition, she ignores the fact that ethical improvements in society don't occur because of 'acts of will' on the part of societies, but instead, because moral entrepreneurs recognize the new scope of choices and moral opportunities offered by prior increases in the general level of civilization. In addition, in contrast to liberty of thought and action, we rarely see that an emphasis on dignity, in individuals, is a factor in leading to their increased productivity, thus casting doubt on its CAUSAL importance societaly.