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The modern world was an economic tide, but did not have economic causes
Liberal ideas caused the innovation
And a new rhetoric protected the ideas
Many other plausible stories don't work very well
The correct story praises capitalism
Modern growth was a factor of at least sixteen
Increasing scope, not pot-of-pleasure happiness, is what mattered
And the poor won
Creative destruction can be justified therefore on utilitarian grounds
British economists did not recognize the tide
But the figures tell
Britain's (and Europe's) lead was an episode
And followers could leap over stages
The tide didn't happen because of thrift
Capital fundamentalism is wrong
A rise of greed or of a Protestant ethic didn't happen
Endless accumulation does not typify the modern world
Nor was the cause original accumulation or a sin of expropriation
Nor was it accumulation of human capital until lately
Transport or other domestic reshufflings didn't cause it
Nor geography, nor natural resources
Not even coal
Foreign trade was not the cause, though world prices were a context
And the logic of trade-as-an-engine is dubious
And even the dynamic effects of trade were small
The effects on Europe of the slave trade and British imperialism were smaller still
And other exploitations, external or internal, were equally profitless to ordinary Europeans
It was not the sheer quickening of commerce
Nor the struggle over the spoils
Eugenic materialism doesn't work
Neo-Darwinism doesn't compute
And inheritance fades
Institutions cannot be viewed merely as incentive-providing constraints
And so the better institutions, such as those alleged for 1689, don't explain
And anyway the entire absence of property is not relevant to the place or period
And the chronology of property and incentives has been mismeasured
And so the routine of Max U doesn't work
The cause was not science
But bourgeois dignity and liberty entwined with the Englightenment
It was not allocation
It was words
Dignity and liberty for ordinary people, in short, were the greatest externalities
And the model can be formalized
Opposing the bourgeois hurts the poor
And the bourgeois era warrants therefore not political or environmental pessimism
But an amiable, if guarded optimism.
Liberal ideas caused the innovation
And a new rhetoric protected the ideas
Many other plausible stories don't work very well
The correct story praises capitalism
Modern growth was a factor of at least sixteen
Increasing scope, not pot-of-pleasure happiness, is what mattered
And the poor won
Creative destruction can be justified therefore on utilitarian grounds
British economists did not recognize the tide
But the figures tell
Britain's (and Europe's) lead was an episode
And followers could leap over stages
The tide didn't happen because of thrift
Capital fundamentalism is wrong
A rise of greed or of a Protestant ethic didn't happen
Endless accumulation does not typify the modern world
Nor was the cause original accumulation or a sin of expropriation
Nor was it accumulation of human capital until lately
Transport or other domestic reshufflings didn't cause it
Nor geography, nor natural resources
Not even coal
Foreign trade was not the cause, though world prices were a context
And the logic of trade-as-an-engine is dubious
And even the dynamic effects of trade were small
The effects on Europe of the slave trade and British imperialism were smaller still
And other exploitations, external or internal, were equally profitless to ordinary Europeans
It was not the sheer quickening of commerce
Nor the struggle over the spoils
Eugenic materialism doesn't work
Neo-Darwinism doesn't compute
And inheritance fades
Institutions cannot be viewed merely as incentive-providing constraints
And so the better institutions, such as those alleged for 1689, don't explain
And anyway the entire absence of property is not relevant to the place or period
And the chronology of property and incentives has been mismeasured
And so the routine of Max U doesn't work
The cause was not science
But bourgeois dignity and liberty entwined with the Englightenment
It was not allocation
It was words
Dignity and liberty for ordinary people, in short, were the greatest externalities
And the model can be formalized
Opposing the bourgeois hurts the poor
And the bourgeois era warrants therefore not political or environmental pessimism
But an amiable, if guarded optimism.