… is from page xi of Deirdre Nansen McCloskey’s hot-off-the-Yale-University-Press 2019 book, Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All; by “Great Enrichment,” McCloskey refers to the historically unparalleled increase, over the past two centuries (and still occurring), of the material standard of living of ordinary people in societies classically liberal and (hence) relatively free:
The Great Enrichment doesn’t mean, of course, that there’s nothing more to do in helping the poor, especially by ending the numerous, monstrous, and yet politically popular policies that in fact damage them worldwide. But it does mean that it is mischievous to attack, as many political theories do, a “capitalism” that has done more than anything else to help the poor.
