The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

character(s) 351Our ethical talk overlooks the ever-growing world of management, negotiation,leadership, persuasion, and other business. The eighteenth centurybegan to construct an ethical vocabulary for merchants, especially inScotland, and most especially in the writings and teaching of Adam Smith.As Michael Novak put it, “Smith saw his own life’s work as moral teachingfor the ‘new class’ of his era.” 7You’re part of it, probably.