Why did the modern economic revolution in production and trade first happen in north-western Europe?
At the APEE conference, Deirdre McCloskey delivered a plenary address based on her new book, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World. Her argument is that neither material resources nor technology nor capital accumulation nor geographical factors drove the transformation. Rather, it was a change in ideas and attitudes: the producers, merchants, and traders who make up the bourgeoisie came to be respected. They got dignity, in marked contrast to the traditional disparaging in cultures dominated by the otherworldly, ascetic values of religion and the predatory martial values of tribal warriors and feudal aristocrats.
Respect for the bourgeoisie meant that they went on to develop the institutions of modern capitalism, they became a political force that undermined traditional feudalism and paved the way for modern democratic-republicanism, and the resulting more free political economy became wealthy, generating the science, the technology, and the educational institutions that we are now familiar with. A virtuous cycle was created.
Note that McCloskey’s explanation is in terms of ideas rather than reductive material forces, and in terms of ethical ideas in particular. That is to say, she is arguing that philosophical ideas are the key causal power.
Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand had earlier argued for ideational over materialist causes of history. Here is Mises in Planned Chaos (1947):
“The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends. The sensational events which stir the emotions and catch the interest of superficial observers are merely the consummation of ideological changes. There are no such things as abrupt, sweeping transformations of human affairs. What is called, in rather misleading terms, a ‘turning point in history’ is the coming on the scene of forces which were already for a long time at work behind the scene. New ideologies, which had already long since superseded the old ones, throw off their last veil, and even the dullest people become aware of the changes they did not notice before” (p. 62).
Here is Rand in For the New Intellectual (1961), focusing more narrowly on philosophical ideas as decisive: “Just as a man’s actions are preceded and determined by some form of idea in his mind, so a society’s existential conditions are preceded and determined by the ascendancy of a certain philosophy among those whose job it is to deal with ideas. The events of any given period of history are the result of the thinking of the preceding period” (p. 27).
McCloskey has been influenced by Israel Kirzner, who was one of Mises’s students. McCloskey’s importance is her is singling out of ethical ideas as fundamental. (Though see also Roark’s courtroom speech in Rand’s The Fountainhead (1943) for the mid-career Rand’s focus on a culture’s moral evaluation of innovators and creators as a key determinant of the course of history.)
Two student groups at Rockford College are producing a discussing of a perennially important topic:
Morality without God?
* Is life purposeless or meaningless without belief in a particular God or religion?
* Without God, does that mean “anything goes”?
* Does belief in a particular God or religion incline one to morality? Does it matter which religion or God?
Campus Intervarsity and the Secular Student Alliance are the co-sponsoring groups. In the symposium, they will present different perspectives on this question.
Time: Tuesday, November 30th, 4-5:30 p.m. Place: Peterson Auditorium, Starr Science Building, Rockford College
The event is free and open to the public.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 8:40 am. 2 comments
Philippa Foot’s career at Oxford spanned much of the sprawling twentieth-century. Foot came to be a champion of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, in contrast to the schools of deontology and utilitarian consequentialism that held sway in much of the Anglo-American philosophical world. Her Natural Goodness (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) was her last contribution to the discussion.
Wisdom about the challenge of learning from a great genius and then finding one’s own path. Here is Zarathustra:
“Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now, alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you. The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must be able to hate his friends. One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a student. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath? You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers—but what matter all believers? You have not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The image is Caspar David Friedrich’s “The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” [circa 1818].)
Posted 1 year, 5 months ago at 8:42 am. Add a comment
Here is a fascinating short article in the British Journal of Medicine by Robert N. Proctor, professor of the history of medicine at Penn State University:
The campaign was mounted despite the arguments that (1) taxes on tobacco were a significant source of income for the German government and (2) the tobacco industry provided thousands of jobs. Political principles were at stake.
The chief anti-smoking activist, one Adolf Hitler, stated that “Nazism might never have triumphed in Germany had he not given up smoking.”
I gave the Nazi anti-smoking campaigns a passing mention in Nietzsche and the Nazis, in the context of discussing the Nazis’ socialization of the body politic, and Proctor has developed the anti-smoking theme in much greater detail.
Greater Buenos Aires has a population of around 13 million. How do they all get to work, school, and visiting grandmother in the old neighborhood? Many drive, but here’s an an interesting tidbit about its unique mix of private and public transportation:
“There are over 150 city bus lines called Colectivos, each one managed by an individual company. These compete with each other, and attract exceptionally high use with virtually no public financial support. Their frequency makes them equal to the underground systems of other cities, but buses cover a far wider area than the underground system. Colectivos in Buenos Aires do not have a fixed timetable, but run from 4 to several per hour, depending on the bus line and time of the day. With very cheap tickets and extensive routes, usually no further than four blocks from commuters’ residences, the colectivo is the most popular mode of transport around the city” (Wikipedia).
By contrast, many U.S. city governments continue to experiment with top-down, politically-enforced, and economically wasteful public transportation systems. Here is John Catoe, the general manager of the Washington, D.C., Metro system:
“One thing that it is important to understand though is that the fares only pay a portion of the operating budget. This year, about 53%. If you add the money we earn from advertising and other sources, we cover about 60% of the cost. In fact no transit agency in the country makes a profit or breaks even. The rest comes from the local governments that partner with Metro.” [Emphasis added.]
The abstract: “Philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand are often identified as strong critics of altruism and arch advocates of egoism. In this essay, Stephen Hicks argues that Nietzsche and Rand have much in common in their critiques of altruism but almost nothing in common in their views on egoism.”
My opening paragraph: “To what extent is Ayn Rand’s ethical theory Nietzschean? Three Friedrich Nietzsches are relevant to making that judgment. …”
The major sections of the article:
Part One: On Critiquing Altruism
Three Nietzsches and Ayn Rand
Some intellectuals on Nietzsche and Rand
Egoism, altruism, and “selfishness”
A Nietzschean sketch God is dead
Nihilism’s symptoms
Two bio-psychological types
Psychology and morality
Genealogy
Comparing Nietzsche’s and Rand’s critiques of altruism
Rand’s break with Nietzsche’s critique
Part Two: On Egoism
Rand’s egoism
Nietzsche’s rhetoric and system
The major differences between Nietzsche and Rand Are individuals real?
Do individuals have free will?
What is the source of moral values?
How does the self identify its nature and values?
Are individual selves ends in themselves?
Are fundamental values universal?
Are the relations of individuals win/win or win/lose?
Rights, liberty, equality before the law?
Slavery and freedom, war and peace
Conclusion
Posted 1 year, 6 months ago at 8:04 am. Add a comment
Her argument is that neither material resources nor technology nor capital accumulation nor geographical factors drove the transformation. Rather, it was a change in ideas and attitudes: the producers, merchants, and traders who make up the bourgeoisie came to be respected. They got dignity, in marked contrast to the traditional disparaging in cultures dominated by the otherworldly, ascetic values of religion and the predatory martial values of tribal warriors and feudal aristocrats. 
“The history of mankind is the history of ideas. For it is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human action, determine the ultimate ends men aim and the choice of the means employed for the attainment of these ends. The sensational events which stir the emotions and catch the interest of superficial observers are merely the consummation of ideological changes. There are no such things as abrupt, sweeping transformations of human affairs. What is called, in rather misleading terms, a ‘turning point in history’ is the coming on the scene of forces which were already for a long time at work behind the scene. New ideologies, which had already long since superseded the old ones, throw off their last veil, and even the dullest people become aware of the changes they did not notice before” (p. 62). 
Here is Rand in For the New Intellectual (1961), focusing more narrowly on philosophical ideas as decisive: “Just as a man’s actions are preceded and determined by some form of idea in his mind, so a society’s existential conditions are preceded and determined by the ascendancy of a certain philosophy among those whose job it is to deal with ideas. The events of any given period of history are the result of the thinking of the preceding period” (p. 27). 
Part One: On Critiquing Altruism 
Part Two: On Egoism
Stephen Hicks contrasts modernism’s and pre-modernism’s philosophical themes. This is from Part 14 of his 
