Capitalism may not be much in fashion among younger Americans these days, but renowned University of Illinois at Chicago economist Deirdre McCloskey believes the system holds the key to expanded prosperity and human liberation.
In this interview, McCloskey discusses the thesis of her recent trilogy, The Bourgeois Era, which holds that the driving force of economic growth in 17th and 18th century Europe was simply liberal ideas. A paean to capitalism and European liberalism, the books explore how the endowing of dignity and economic independence upon the emerging bourgeois class unleashed an entrepreneurial spirit that led to the dramatic growth rates of the industrial revolution and beyond. She argues that more than technological and economic factors, it was a change in culture, ideology, and a new found freedom and respect for the working classes that explained Europe’s economic success.
Her hypothesis when exploring prospects for growth in countries such as India and China could scarcely be more significant. Is the empowerment of the bourgeoisie the key to unleashing economic growth? Is the slogan “It’s the ideas stupid” a valid approach to development? What of the environmental and other constraints on growth that are not incorporated into the optimistic perspective that capitalism and entrepreneurship are sufficient to ensure long term and widespread economic growth? McCloskey explores these and other questions in this broad-ranging conversation.
Having taught for several years at the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, she is best known for her work as an economic historian. McCloskey has, however, published and taught in the fields of Economics, History, English, and Communications. A nuanced thinker, she declines the label of “conservative economist”, prefering to describe herself as a “literary, quantitative, postmodern, free-market, progressive-Episcopalian.”