The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

not by p alone 427have to reach over to the cracker box? “The American,” my brother JohnMcCloskey notes, “sees no sacred cause in cutting his own cheese—he’drather subcontract the effort.” 4 To follow Dutch habits of cheese paringwould be considered, as the Americans say, “cheap.” In the 1930s Chicagoanswould joke about Goldblatt’s, a low-end department store then on StateStreet, that when birds flew over it they cried, “Cheap, cheap, cheap.” Thejoke would puzzle the Dutch, and certainly not because of some defect intheir grasp of the English language. Goedkoop, cheap, is literally a “goodbuy,” and is an act of sacred goodness in being Dutch.The children’s books by Annie M. G. Schmidt that helped define bourgeoislife in the Netherlands during and after the 1950s had as protagonists the littleboy Jip (pronounced “Yip”) and the little girl Janneke (“yan-uh-ku”),about four years old. In one episode Jip and Janneke are looking enviouslyout the window at the birds, who can fly away at will, even to Africa. Jannekeasks Mother, “Shall we also leave in the winter? To the South? ToAfrica? And then in the spring come back again?”“I would find that wonderful,” says Mother. “But the birds have wings. Theycan fly. And we can’t.”“We can too fly,” says Jip. “With an airplane.”“That costs a lot of money,” says Mother. “And we don’t have that.”Jip and Janneke gaze a long time at the birds. Who can go away so far. Withtheir own wings. A great bargain [heel goedkoop].And they are jealous. 5Heel goedkoop. The remark in such circumstances is impossible in America.An economist might object that children’s books, such as David C.McClelland used long ago in a similar way, do not settle the issue of culturaldifferences. 6 But such attitudes pervade Dutch culture, high and low. Americansbelieve, as Huey Long said, “Every man a king.” Kings are not supposedto bargain over olive oil or save tiny dollops of spaghetti sauce orthink of birds as having cheap airfares to their advantage. Those would beabsurd, ignoble things for a king to do or think.Dutch people believe, on the contrary, We’re all in this together. Standingout in an aristocratic way is discouraged, even by the tiny group of literalaristocrats. To engage in non-zuinig consumption is the act of a nouveauriche; good Lord, even a Walloon. It would be absurd, presumptuous toimagine one could be a “king” and take on the “egotistical” trappings of royalty.We Dutch are bourgeois, huddled in little cities fighting the Spanish king