… is from page 449 of Art Carden’s and Deirdre McCloskey’s 2018 paper “The Bourgeois Deal: Leave Me Alone, and I’ll Make You Rich” (which is Chapter 10 of this excellent 2018 book edited by Steven Globerman and Jason Clemens):
Allowing people to venture forth and to reap the rewards of doing so is important, not just because it brings us ever-wider varieties of goods and services at ever-lower costs. It does a few other things as well. First, it recognizes our ability and our right to self-author however we choose, without having to ask permission from elites. Second, it extends an implicit and society-wide acknowledgement of liberty and dignity for everyone irrespective of bloodline or skin color. The last vestiges of racial hierarchy hang on, and stubbornly. The solution, we think, is not a larger and more active state, but greater freedom for entrepreneurs.


Allowing people to venture forth and to reap the rewards of doing so is important, not just because it brings us ever-wider varieties of goods and services at ever-lower costs. It does a few other things as well. First, it recognizes our ability and our right to self-author however we choose, without having to ask permission from elites. Second, it extends an implicit and society-wide acknowledgement of liberty and dignity for everyone irrespective of bloodline or skin color. The last vestiges of racial hierarchy hang on, and stubbornly. The solution, we think, is not a larger and more active state, but greater freedom for entrepreneurs.
