The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

Commerce penetrates the secret places of the world, approaches shores unseen, explores fearfulwildernesses, and in tongues unknown and with barbaric peoples carries on the trade ofmankind. The pursuit of commerce reconciles nations, calms wars, strengthens peace, andcommutes the private good of individuals into the common benefit of all.—Hugh of St. Victor, c. 1125I don’t know which is the more useful to the state, a well-powdered lord who knows preciselywhen the king gets up in the morning ...or a great merchant who enriches his country,sends orders from his office to Surat or to Cairo, and contributes to the well-being of theworld.—Voltaire, 1733The progress of civilization, the commercial tendency of the age, the communication amongthe peoples, have infinitely multiplied and varied the means of individual happiness. To behappy, men need only to be left in perfect independence in all that concerns their occupations,their undertakings, their sphere of activity, their fantasies.—Benjamin Constant, 1814In a community regulated by laws of demand and supply, but protected from open violence,the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud, covetous,prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons whoremain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the humble, thethoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, theirregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, the entirely merciful,just, and godly person.—John RuskinCommerce is the name for free, mutual, and voluntary exchange among peoples. It is thenormal activity by which interdependence is realized and the common good of all served. Itis an activity typically more unifying than politics, nationalism, religion, or conquest. Itsnature is social, as is its function, and as are the virtues it inculcates.—Michael Novak, 1984