The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

510 postscript4 The Bourgeois City of the Eighteenth-Century PhilosophersThe unique part was precisely the philosophizing of bourgeoisvirtues, and its representation in literature, such as in the novel, in theessay, and in drama. Bourgeois virtues were on the verge of becomingthe ideology of the age.5 How Much, How Big: Measurement and the BourgeoisieAn example is the pervasiveness of counting and accounting.6 The Hobbesian Moment: Why Prudence Is Not SufficientA simplified version of bourgeois virtues takes Prudence as all. Thepassions played against the virtues, and not merely against the interests;it was not merely a balance of interests that tamed the passions.7 The Smithian Moment: Prudence among the Other VirtuesIt was a balance of virtues, such as northwestern Europe evinced.8 The Factor of Fifteen: The Bourgeois Material BenefitOne result was modern economic growth, which is not merely areturn on original accumulation (as anticapitalists and some misledcapitalists have supposed).9 Foreign Trade Was Not ItOne can go through a long list of the Nots of causes for moderngrowth—not, for example, trade as an engine of growth, an errorwhich still haunts development economics.10 All the Nots of Bourgeois GrowthNot slavery, not piracy, not imperialism, and especially not what economistscall “neoclassical reallocations.”11 New Models?Virtues caused commerce. The outcome was the greatest change inthe human condition since the invention of agriculture, the freeing ofbillions of people from poverty.12 Sweet TalkAnd the other direction of causation is equally important: that commercesweetened people. Speech dominates bourgeois society. Cooperation,not alienation, is the usual result of commerce.13 Bourgeois Speech ActsThe speaking ability is quantitatively important in various bourgeoissocieties.