Leave Me Alone and I'll Make You Rich

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey is the Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, and English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her books include The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce; Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World; Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World; Economical Writing; and Crossing: A Memoir, all also published by the University of Chicago Press. Art Carden is associate professor of economics at the Brock School of Business at Samford University.

• PrefacePart I Poverty Is on the Run1 Liberalism Liberated2 It’s the End of the World as They Knew It, and You Should Feel Pretty Good3 Nostalgia and Pessimism Worsen Poverty4 Under Liberalism the Formerly Poor Can Flourish Ethically and Spiritually5 Consider the Possibility That Your Doubts Might Be Mistaken6 Pessimism Has Been since 1800 a Rotten Predictor7 Even about the Environment8 In Fact, None of the Seven Old Pessimisms Makes a Lot of Sense9 Nor Do the Three New Ones10 So to Get Better, the World Had Better Keep Its Ethical Wits about It11 And True Liberalism Celebrates a Life Beyond WealthPart II Enrichment Didn’t Come for the Reasons You Imagine12 Liberal Ideas, Not European Horrors or Heroism, Explain the Great Enrichment13 Liberalism Supported Innovism and the Profit Test14 The Great Enrichment Did Not Come from Resources or Railways or Property Rights15 Nor Thrift or “Capitalism”16 Schooling and Science Were Not the Fairy Dust17 It Wasn’t Imperialism18 Nor Slavery19 Nor Wage Slavery Ended by Unions and RegulationPart III It Came Because Ideas, Ethics, Rhetoric, and Ideology Changed20 The Talk and the Deals Changed in Northwestern Europe21 That Is, Ethics and Rhetoric Changed22 “Honest” Shows the Change23 And “Happiness” Itself Changed24 The Change in Valuation Showed in English Plays, Poems, and NovelsPart IV The Causes of the Causes Were Not Racial or Ancient25 Happy Accidents Led to the Revaluation26 And Then Old Adam Smith Revealed / The Virtues of the Bourgeois DealAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

"For those unable to devote the time to reading The Bourgeois Virtues, Bourgeois Dignity, and Bourgeois Equality, McCloskey has teamed here with Carden to write a popular version. While the argument is the same—namely that respect for human liberty is what led to the Great Enrichment—this book is not a Reader’s Digest condensed version of the trilogy. Carden and McCloskey use this opportunity to make the ideas of the trilogy more contemporary. They do so in two ways. Current policy proposals, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposal for a 2 percent tax on the wealthy, are used where appropriate. Modern examples, from changes to the television set as owned by the TV Simpsons family to a long list of failed business ideas that wasted resources, such as the New Coke or Trump Airlines, are added to the mix alongside McCloskey's literary and historical examples. Even readers of McCloskey's three prior volumes will find much to enjoy in this updated reprise. Recommended."