… is from pages 643-644 of the final (2016) volume – Bourgeois Equality – of Deirdre McCloskey’s great trilogy on the essence of bourgeois values, on their transmission, and on their essential role in modernity:
Contrary to [Thomas] Carlyle and [Charles] Sellers, however, bourgeois life is in fact mainly cooperative and altruistic, and when competitive it is good for the poorest amongst us. We should have more of it.