The Journal of Socio-Economics 41 (2012) 772–775
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The Journal of Socio-Economics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/soceco
What can sociology teach us about the ideational origins of modernity?
Comments on McCloskey’s Bourgeois Dignity
Joshua T. McCabe
Department of Sociology, University at Albany, SUNY, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 30 July 2011
Received in revised form 12 March 2012
Accepted 9 April 2012
1. Introduction
In Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern
World, Deirdre McCloskey makes the bold claim that none of the
usual factors used by economists to explain the rise of the modern
world provide a satisfactory answer. In contrast to the majority
of her colleagues in economics, McCloskey looks beyond tradi-
tional materialist explanations such as the presence of natural
resources, changes in agriculture, and the rise of particular institu-
tions. Instead, she focuses on the rise of a particular kind of rhetoric
in several countries which blazed a path to the modern world. The
most influential fact was the “Bourgeois Revaluation” which took
place in Holland, Britain, France, and the United States. She argues:
“An old class of town dwellers, formerly despised by the clergy and
the aristocracy and the peasantry, began to acquire a more dignified
standing, in the way people thought and talked about it, in Euro-
pean rhetoric about middle-class activities. And along with a new
dignity the bourgeoisie began to acquire a new liberty. Both were
rhetorical events” (McCloskey, 2010, p. 10).
In many ways, McCloskey’s work parallels that of one of history’s
most famous sociologists, Max Weber. Both Weber and McCloskey
work in the “grand narrative” tradition and seek to explain the
rise of the modern world. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism (1905, p. 88), Weber argues that the rise of Calvinist
theology and its concomitant “valuation of the fulfillment of duty
in worldly affairs as the highest form of moral activity which the
individual could assume” helped usher in an era of what sociol-
ogists call “instrumental-rationality” or what economists would
call rational self-interest which led to the rise of capitalism. As
it turns out, Weber was largely wrong about the relationship
between Calvinism and capitalism (as McCloskey points out) but
this misses the larger point of his work. Weber’s real contribution in
E-mail address: joshmccabe@hotmail.com
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The Protestant Ethic was challenging the materialist conceptions of
the rise of capitalism popular among economists and historians of
his day. In Weber’s view, culture and ideas matter. While Weber
took aim at Karl Marx, McCloskey sets her sights on Douglas North
among others.
In this volume (only the second of six planned), McCloskey
makes the negative case that it was not material factors which
led to the high living standards we take for granted today. She
employs Mill’s method of residues: “The idea is, after getting rid
of everything else that is measurable, the residuals can be taken as
the real cause–in this case it is rhetoric (McCloskey, 2010, p. 33).”
She makes a good case that none of the material factors she cov-
ers are responsible for the modern world in any significant way;
therefore rhetoric matters. If showing that rhetoric matters is her
only task then Bourgeois Dignity makes that point but does little
else. As Skocpol (1992, p. 22) famously asks of ideational-centered
approaches, “Whose ideas and values? And ideas and values about
what more precisely?” In order to make a significant contribution to
this area, McCloskey must show us exactly how and when rhetoric
matters. With this in mind, this paper will explore the possible
directions McCloskey could take her argument as she continues
writing the next volume in the series.
I am a historical-comparative sociologist by training; therefore I
will limit my discussion to work in this subfield. The first part of the
discussion will examine several theories from political sociology
and political science in which ideas play a central role in shap-
ing institutions (and vice versa). Ideas are defined here to include
both cognitive (beliefs/perceptions) and normative (values/morals)
elements of human action. The attempt will be to rehabilitate the
view of institutions so that they move beyond the prescribed role of
“merely” providing constraints on actors. Political sociology, for all
the stereotypes that perceive it as still mired in Marxist class anal-
ysis, long ago moved beyond simple interest-based explanations of
historical change. The last two decades can largely be character-
ized as a debate on the relationship between institutions and ideas.
I will focus on new work that seeks to dispel the notion that this
 J.T. McCabe / The Journal of Socio-Economics 41 (2012) 772–775
is an either/or explanation by looking at the interaction between
ideas and institutions at the macro level. The second part will exam-
ine the role of ideas in influencing actors on the micro level within
the market. Economic sociology has much to offer McCloskey here.
I will use examples from McCloskey’s work throughout in order to
shed some light on the rise of capitalism, modernity, and Bourgeois
Dignity.
2. The macro level: ideas and institutions
Economists have long known that institutions, broadly con-
strued, matter for economic development. Baumol (1990) makes
the distinction between two kinds of entrepreneurship as they
relate to institutions. Productive entrepreneurship includes trade
and innovation which creates economic value. Unproductive
entrepreneurship includes rent-seeking and war-making which
simply redistributes economic value or even destroys it. He
argues that different institutions encourage different kinds of
entrepreneurship from the same people. The early work of North
(1990) makes arguments along these same lines.
Institutional change, on the other hand, remains under-
theorized by economists. More recent work by North (2005)
integrates the concept of cognitive ideas into a theory of institu-
tional change that purports to account for the rise of capitalism
in Europe but as Wilkinson (2005, p. 175) points out in a review,
“North’s discussion is merely suggestive, and does not dwell on the
possible mechanisms hinted at in early chapters by which belief
systems, preferences, institutional structures, technologies, and
cognitive processes might interdependently evolve.” Blyth (2002),
in his study of the resurgence of neoliberalism in Sweden and the
United States, makes similar efforts but suffers from the same limi-
tations. He gives us the famous dictum: “Structures do not come
with an instruction sheet.” In other words, actors aren’t always
aware of what is in their best interest as many new institution-
alist models assume. He lays out an alternative theory of the causal
power of ideas: (1) “In periods of economic crisis, ideas (not insti-
tutions) reduce uncertainty.” (2) “Following uncertainty reduction,
ideas make collective action and coalition-building possible.” (3)
“In the struggle of existing institutions, ideas are weapons.” (4)
“Following delegitimation of existing institutions, new ideas act as
institutional blueprints.” (5) “Following institutional construction,
ideas make institutional stability possible (Blyth, 2002, pp. 34–44).”
Like North, Blyth’s emphasis on the cognitive aspect of ideas stems
from the belief that ideas serve as important tools for overcom-
ing Knightian uncertainty. Thus ideas, as powerful as they are in
times of crisis, are only causally powerful for those very limited
periods. This leaves little room for ideas in “normal” times except
as reinforcing institutions via expectations.
The problem, as McCloskey (2010, p. 296) aptly notes, is that
“institutions cannot be viewed merely as incentive-providing con-
straints.” North and Blyth fall short because they simply expand
the concept of institutions to include cognitive ideas. McCloskey’s
objection echoes critics of rational choice and historical institution-
alism. For rational choice institutionalists like North (1990, 2005)
culture is mainly a set of norms which constrain the behavior of
actors to a set of socially acceptable actions. Much like the Ten
Commandments, culture is given from up high and remains outside
of the actors themselves. Similarly, historical institutionalists like
Dobbin (1994) rely too much on path dependency arguments which
leave little room for social change once certain feedback mecha-
nism have been put in place. Instead of a theory of institutional
change, we get a series of punctuated equilibriums where social
change is always exogenous to the model, set off by some outside
force. Often times, the task is left to an amorphous “institutional
entrepreneur” who swoops in to magically change everyone’s
773
collective minds (see Aldrich, 2011 for a critique of the concept).
While this makes for a good story, it is not what drives historical
change. Informal constraints, in McCloskey’s (2010, p. 303) view are
“continually renegotiated” so we need a framework which enables
us to account for dynamic change. In other words, McCloskey must
be able to endogenize social change. Recent work on “discursive
institutionalism” may provide the answer for which we are looking.
Schmidt (2008, 2010) is at the forefront of developing this
approach by synthesizing and extending several strands of new
institutionalisms under the banner of discursive institutionalism.
This approach takes account of the “substantive content of ideas
and the interactive processes by which ideas are conveyed and
exchanged through discourse (Schmidt, 2010, p. 3).” Schmidt, a
political scientist, aims her analysis at political institutions but we
can also apply her framework to the informal institutions of the
economy. She breaks down ideas in terms of their “levels of gen-
erality (policies, programs, and philosophies) and type of content
(cognitive and normative)” as well as “two basic forms of discourse:
the coordinative discourse among policy actors and the commu-
nicative discourse between political actors and the public (Schmidt,
2008, p. 305).” What does this mean for McCloskey?
McCloskey would need to demonstrate how the normative
philosophy of Dutch and British elites transformed views of the
bourgeois through communicative discourse. The focus on elites
is important because they possess what Schmidt calls “foreground
discursive abilities.”
These foreground discursive abilities are essential to explain-
ing institutional change because they refer to peoples’ ability
to think outside the institutions in which they continue to act,
to talk about such institutions in a critical way, to commu-
nicate and deliberate about them, to persuade themselves as
well as others to change their minds about their institutions,
and then to take action to change them, whether by building
‘discursive coalitions’ for reform against entrenched interests
in the coordinative policy sphere or informing and orienting
the public in the communicative political sphere (Schmidt,
2010).
It is not enough for McCloskey to show that attitudes toward
the bourgeoisie changed in Holland and England during the 17th
and 18th century. She must show us exactly how this happened
through a thorough process tracing (a great method for picking up
on those mechanisms missed by North) of the events in question
(George and Bennett, 2005, pp. 205–224). At any given point in
time, there are almost an infinite number of ideas floating around
about an infinite number of subjects. What made Bourgeois Dignity
so special? A number of questions spring to mind. Where did these
ideas come from and how did they gain such broad acceptance?
Why did it begin in Holland and Britain? Hirschman (1977) argues
that the rise of what he calls commercial liberalism was a rational
response to desires to repress man’s dangerous passions. Somers
(1993), looking at the rise of citizenship rights in England (some-
thing akin to McCloskey’s concept of Bourgeois Dignity), finds that
the connection between political culture and citizenship rights was
highly contingent on a number of other factors including law, the
constellation of elite social networks, and the structure of agricul-
ture in rural areas. Which actors are responsible for the changes
in attitude? What other factors explain their timing? Popp Berman
(2012), looking at the rise of market logic in university science,
finds that changes were closely tied to discussions about innova-
tion among dispersed political, academic, and business elites in
response to international economic competition from Japan and
Europe and took place over several decades. These are the impor-
tant questions which must be answered for McCloskey to include
ideas and rhetoric in a convincing explanation for the rapid rise in
living standard which led to the modern world.
774 J.T. McCabe / The Journal of Socio-Economics 41 (2012) 772–775
3. The micro level: moralizing markets
Another issue with North’s conception of the growth of the
institutions is that he sees their evolution as a form of “adaptive
efficiency” (North, 2005). People are rational and, given the right
kind of institutional feedback mechanisms, their actions will result
in efficient institutions. This leads to a naturalistic view of mar-
kets as institutions which will arise because of elements inherent
to our human nature. Polanyi (1944) challenges this idea of human
nature and the naturalness of the market in The Great Transforma-
tion. He argues that commodification, the process in which objects
are produced for sale on the markets, is far from natural. It had to
be imposed on people through changes in the law such as the cre-
ation of labor markets in England under the 1795 Speenhamland
system. McCloskey, despite different normative evaluations than
Polanyi, takes the same view of the malleability of “human nature.”
If markets are so natural, why is the handle on McCloskey’s hockey
stick of material living standards so long? Smith (1776) famously
begins chapter two of An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations by discussing how the division of labor gives rise
to trade. He says,
This division of labour, from which so many advantages are
derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which
foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives
occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual con-
sequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in
view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter,
and exchange one thing for another.
Many economists take this passage as evidence that Smith
believes homo economicus is in the nature of man, but critics
question this particular reading of Smith (Polanyi, 1944; Kennedy,
2005). There is good reason for this. In the next passage, Smith goes
on to question his own assertion:
Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in
human nature, of which no further account can be given; or
whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary conse-
quence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to
our present subject to enquire [emphasis added].
It is no wonder Smith attributed this propensity to human
nature as he was writing at a time when the industrial revolution
was already well underway in England and the men all around him
were involved in a vigorous commercial life where they trucked,
bartered, and exchanged on a daily basis. But why hadn’t these
industrious men figured this out earlier? When most economists
see the metaphorical “big bills left on the sidewalk,” as was the
case with England 100 years earlier, they attribute this problem to
improper or counterproductive institutions (Olson, 1996). Accord-
ing to McCloskey (2010, pp. 296–345), the usual suspects do not
pan out. Institutions thought to be counterproductive were present
while many of the most “necessary” institutions did not appear
until later. Such institutions assume homo economicus, or “Max
U” as McCloskey calls him, so maybe it is best we reexamine this
assumption.
Viviana Zelizer is a sociologist who does exactly this. For the past
30 years, she has looked at the relationship between markets and
society. Zelizer (2010, p. 72) is most critical of what she calls “hostile
world” and “market work” approaches to the economy. The former
argues that rational economic action is poisoned by emotions and
sentiments and poisons social life in turn. The latter argues that it
only counts as economic if there is monetary calculation involved.
In each case, there is a strict separation of economy from society.
In both cases, each particular view of the market is an assumption
rather than an empirical fact. Zelizer finds that the interesting ques-
tions lay in exploring the reality behind the assumptions made by
economists and some earlier sociologists. She does this by looking
at the areas of social life thought to be most at risk for cooptation
by market logic – sex, children, care giving, death – and the areas
thought to be purely economic – money and firms. Most impor-
tantly, she explores the process through which economic logic gains
legitimacy in new areas of social life.
According to Zelizer (2010), there is nothing “natural” about
markets. The best example is the case of life insurance in 19th cen-
tury America. She finds that life insurance was at odds with cultural
values that held life as sacred. The idea was that life insurance was
a commercial form of betting on death and thus highly immoral.
Actors had to work to legitimize life insurance. Attempts to con-
vince the public based on what McCloskey would call a “prudence
only” argument were tried and failed miserably because this would
have changed something sacred, the death of a loved one, into
something profane. Instead they began to bring in other virtues,
such as love and justice, with more success. Life insurance became
a sacred symbol of caring for your loved ones after you died. She
finds the similar stories for adoption markets and care giving. Quinn
(2008) looks at the secondary market for life insurance and finds
similar results. In this case, anonymous investors are betting on the
fact that the person will die sooner rather than later. Although it
was been legal for almost a century, moral aversion to trading life
insurance policies has left the practice almost unused until recently
despite widespread profit opportunities. Whereas earlier rhetori-
cal efforts aiming to legitimize life insurance spoke about providing
for loved ones after you died, rhetoric aiming to legitimize the sec-
ondary market focuses on having the financial means to “die with
dignity.” Each of these may be characterized as part of the contin-
uation of the modern bourgeois revaluation. In contrast to what
some see as the feared rationalization of social life, Zelizer (2010, p.
41) sees a “sacralization” of economic life where profane economic
exchanges are given moral or religious meaning. Just as we take for
granted the idea that life insurance is a dignified endeavor today,
we also take for granted the ideas that trucking, bartering, and
consuming was seen as a dignified endeavor in the 16th century.
Moreover, these market exchanges were all legal during the
periods in question. Despite all the requisite legal institutions in
place, people had a moral aversion to these kinds of transactions.
Economists such as Roth (2007) have begun to pay attention to the
role of ideas such as repugnance in constraining markets but like
North, the focus on their role as constraints avoids the question
of social change. In contrast, Zelizer and Quinn use newspapers
trade journals, interviews, and other media sources to examine
changes in discourse over time. The difference is important because
economists are often unfamiliar with textual and content analysis
which offers a superior way to empirically explore the effects of
changes in discourse and rhetoric on other political and socioeco-
nomic outcomes. Alongside elite discourse, McCloskey must also
examine popular discourse. This will prove especially challenging
given the dearth of popular media sources from earlier centuries
which have survived today for proper analysis.
4. Conclusion
Having spent the bulk of this paper discussing theoretical and
methodological insights from sociology which can help McCloskey
establish that it was indeed ideas and rhetoric which led to the rise
of the modern world, I want to take some time to touch upon her
larger point about markets and morals.
Fourcade and Healy (2007) break the literature on “moral views
of market society” down into three camps building on Hirschman’s
(1982) rival interpretations of market society. In the vision of cap-
italism as a “commodifying nightmare” put forth by Marxist and
Polanyi-inspired economists, markets destroy community through
 J.T. McCabe / The Journal of Socio-Economics 41 (2012) 772–775
a process of commodification while in the feeble version, markets
are overpowered by culture and institutional legacies. Fourcade and
Healy put McCloskey’s earlier work on The Bourgeois Values into
a third category they call the “liberal dream” which sees markets
as exerting positive forces on civil society. As they point out, in the
commodifying nightmare and liberal dream models of markets, the
causal arrow points one way from markets to morality (Fourcade
and Healy, 2007, p. 299). Either market society makes us moral or
immoral.
In light of Bourgeois Dignity, Fourcade and Healy’s assessment
of McCloskey needs to be reclassified into their fourth category
as an example of the “moralized markets” approach where the
arrow goes both ways. Throughout Bourgeois Dignity, McCloskey
(2010, p. 11) repeatedly reminds us that liberty (markets) and
dignity (morals) are intertwined “and both were necessary” for
the rise of the modern world. Beyond its normative implications
about the uses and limits of markets, it opens up a number of
new research questions for McCloskey and other scholars inter-
ested in the relationship between markets and morals. Under what
circumstances does market logic lead to human dignity and under
what circumstances is human dignity a requisite for properly func-
tioning markets? While sociologists such as Healy (2006), Zelizer
(2010), and Almeling (2011) have been at the forefront of answering
these questions, economists have shown almost no interest in such
issues. Without speculating on the reasons for this, I will end on the
hope the McCloskey’s future contributions rejuvenate economists’
interest in morals and ethics.
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