tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post5717509061104532752..comments2024-03-14T11:09:32.759-05:00Comments on Falkenblog: McCloskey Champions Bourgeois VirtuesEric Falkensteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07243687157322033496noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post-27826246617240382712011-06-06T12:47:35.069-05:002011-06-06T12:47:35.069-05:00Eric--when you were championing "bourgeois va...Eric--when you were championing "bourgeois values", I assumed you were referring to the small shopkeepers and small-scale capitalists, not to Big Box shareholder capitalism with it's professional managers and wage laborers.<br /><br />I've never heard the term applied to Walmart, Target, Home Depot, or Safeway. But perhaps you can enlighten me. <br /><br />BTW, just because I chose to spend my money at the local paint store doesn't mean I think Home Depot is "bad" nor does it make me an anarcho-syndicalist...Toddnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post-91321410878988795912011-06-06T10:48:30.199-05:002011-06-06T10:48:30.199-05:00Todd: The preference towards 'small scale'...Todd: The preference towards 'small scale' produce, as opposed to corporations, is what I'm getting at...clearly you are correct that progressives admire small firms, the anarcho-syndicalist vision...but Target, Wal-Mart, etc., I think are good things, not bad, and much more honest and less bigoted than small shopkeepers because such vices don't scale wellEric Falkensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07243687157322033496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post-70765216491177425702011-06-06T09:51:34.583-05:002011-06-06T09:51:34.583-05:00'Bourgeois' was (is?) an epithet because M...'Bourgeois' was (is?) an epithet because Marx made it one. He also essentially invented the term 'capitalism' as a straw man to knock down - so I'm sometimes hesitant to defend 'capitalism' before the term is defined, preferring to focus instead on free enterprise. I would say that all 'developed' economies today are capitalist in the sense that they are driven/dominated by abstract representations of capital - something that probably first came to be in the Medici era.Mercurynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post-40720480173909794442011-06-06T09:13:39.076-05:002011-06-06T09:13:39.076-05:00Who are these "modern progressives who yearn ...Who are these "modern progressives who yearn for the alleged warmth and community of previous non-commercial culture"??<br /><br />I'm a progressive with an abiding respect for bourgeois values. And while I do make an effort to support the local shopkeepers (see France and it's nation of shopkeepers), I've never yearned for a "previous non-commercial culture". <br /><br />If anything, the progessives in my progressive community demonstrate respect for these bourgeois values by supporting the local shopkeepers and farmers, not just their product. Why does that seem to get up your nose?Toddnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post-21586244594056783662011-06-06T03:56:08.972-05:002011-06-06T03:56:08.972-05:00In places with a reasonable level of economic free...In places with a reasonable level of economic freedom I agree that personal traits of the poor is an important factor for explaining why they are poor.<br /><br />However, in the large part of the world where economic freedom is curtailed by authoritarian, or democratic but corrupt and/or socialist governments there are tons of intelligent and non-impulsive people that are poor.<br /><br />Most of North Korea's population would fit in here, and hundred of millions of poor chinese who would probably have been rich if Chiang Kai Chek won the civil war and China had skipped the whole communism thing.<br /><br />If poverty is looked on an absolute scale I'd say the people that are poor because of living in a place with low economic freedom (or low in the recent past) greatly outnumber those that are poor because of personal characteristics.Martinhttp://hotelivory.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7905515.post-87105352882772599912011-06-05T21:22:52.910-05:002011-06-05T21:22:52.910-05:00Aren't your examples of reciprocal behaviour m...Aren't your examples of reciprocal behaviour more a matter of scale than market?<br /><br />Sure I don't say "thank you" when I pay my taxes, but I don't say "thank you" when I pay my phone bill either, and I do say "thank you" at the post office and I used to at the kids' school.<br /><br />In the spirit of bourgeois virtue, I'll refrain from comment on your "why they are poorer" sentence.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com