Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well-Being of Nations
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The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations of Nations Well-Being and Wealth The • Deirdre McCloskey Deirdre Contributors The Annual Proceedings of Deirdre Nansen McCloskey Joel Mokyr Jan Osborn Bart J. Wilson IX Volume 2016-2017 • Gus P. Gradinger Stephen T. Ziliak Emily Chamlee-Wright The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations Joshua C. Hall Seung (Ginny) Choi Virgil Henry Storr Bob Elder 2016-2017 Laura E. Grube Chuck Lewis Catherine M. Orr Department of Economics Volume IX: Bourgeois Virtues and the Great Enrichment: The Ideas and Influence of Deirdre Nansen McCloskey Warren Bruce Palmer, Editor The Miller Upton Program at Beloit College he Wealth and Well-Being of Nations was Testablished to honor Miller Upton, Beloit College’s sixth president. This annual forum provides our students and the wider community the opportunity to engage with some of the leading intellectual figures of our time. The forum is complemented by a suite of programs that enhance student and faculty engagement in the ideas and institutions that lay at the foundation of free and prosperous societies. Senior Seminar on The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations: ach year, seniors in the department of economics participate in a semester- Elong course that is built around the ideas and influence of that year’s Upton Scholar. By the time the Upton Scholar arrives in October, students will have read several of his or her books and research by other scholars that has been influenced by these writings. This advanced preparation provides students the rare opportunity to engage with a leading intellectual figure on a substantive and scholarly level. Endowed Student Internship Awards: portion of the Miller Upton Memorial Endowments supports exceptional A students pursuing high-impact internship experiences. Students are encouraged to pursue internships with for-profit firms and non-profit research organizations dedicated to advancing the wealth and well-being of nations. Charles G. Koch Student Research Colloquium and Speaker Series: ith generous support from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Wthe department has initiated a research colloquium that gives students the opportunity to read and discuss seminal articles aimed at deepening their understanding of the market process. Students also develop original analysis that applies economic ideas to novel contexts. Colloquium participants receive close mentoring as they craft an article with the eventual goal of publication in a newspaper, magazine, or academic journal. The themes of the research colloquium and annual forum are supported with a speaker series featuring the next generation of scholars working on questions central to our understanding of the nature and causes of wealth and well-being. Annual Proceedings of The Wealth and Well-Being of Nations: he keynote address presented by the Upton Scholar is an important Tcontribution to the public discourse on the nature and causes of wealth and well-being. Further, the annual forum includes presentations by noted scholars who expand upon or challenge the work of the Upton Scholar. These presentations are assembled in the Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well- Being of Nations, which serves as an important intellectual resource for students, alumni, and leaders within higher education. The Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well- Being of Nations 2016-2017 Volume IX Warren Bruce Palmer Editor Jennifer Kodl Managing Editor Copyright © 2017 Beloit College Press. The Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well-Being of Nations, 2016-2017. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-0-578-19638-1 Contents Introduction Warren Bruce Palmer............................................................................... 11 How We Became Rich: From Liberal Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions or Exploitation Deirdre Nansen McCloskey ...................................................................... 21 Culture, Elites and the Great Enrichment Joel Mokyr .............................................................................................. 39 Commerce Unbound: A Modern Promethean Story Jan Osborn, Bart J. Wilson, and Gus P. Gradinger .................................... 57 Statistically significant journey: How to grow the economy and keep your hair Stephen T. Ziliak ..................................................................................... 73 Story Craft and the Market Process Emily Chamlee-Wright ............................................................................ 95 A “Model” Model: McCloskey and the Craft of Economics Joshua C. Hall ...................................................................................... 113 Markets as moral training grounds Seung (Ginny) Choi and Virgil Henry Storr ............................................ 129 Heeding McCloskey and Ziliak While Defending the F (as well as the D– and the F+) Bob Elder .............................................................................................. 147 Towards a Culturally-aware Economics Laura E. Grube ..................................................................................... 167 Literary Paint and McCloskey: Reading The Rise of Silas Lapham as an Economic Formation Chuck Lewis ......................................................................................... 189 Marking Bodies in Academic Spaces Catherine M. Orr .................................................................................. 201 Contributors Warren Bruce Palmeris the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. Professor of Economics, Beloit College. Deirdre Nansen McCloskey was the 2016 Miller Upton Scholar and is Distin- guished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago. As her web page notes, “She is known as a “conservative” economist, Chicago-School style (she taught in the Eco- nomics Department there from 1968 to 1980, and in History), but protests that “I’m a literary, quantitative, postmodern, free-market, progressive- Episcopalian, Midwestern woman from Boston who was once a man. Not ‘conservative’! I’m a Christian libertarian.”1 Joel Mokyr is Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History at Northwestern University and Sackler Professor at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University. Jan Osborn is Associate Professor of English and Smith Institute for Political Econ- omy and Philosophy, Chapman University. Bart J. Wilson is Professor of Economics and Law, Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy, and Economic Science Institute, Chapman Uni- versity. Gus P. Gradinger is Investment Analyst, Prologis. Stephen T. Ziliak is Professor of Economics and Faculty Member of the Social Jus- tice Studies Program at Roosevelt University (Chicago) where as a faculty member he also served on the University Board of Trustees. He is also Con- joint Professor of Business and Law, University of Newcastle (Australia); Faculty Affiliate in the Graduate Program of Economics, Colorado State University and Faculty Member of the Angiogenesis Foundation (Cam- bridge). Emily Chamlee-Wright is President of the Institute for Humane Studies. She was previously the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. Professor of Economics and associate dean at Beloit College. Joshua C. Hall is Associate Professor of Economics, and Director of Center for Free Enterprise, West Virginia University. He was the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. 1 http://www.deirdremccloskey.com Contributors Professor of Economics, Beloit College, 2012-2013. Seung (Ginny) Choi is Assistant Professor of Economics, St. Vincent College. Virgil Henry Storr is a Senior Research Fellow and the Senior Director of Aca- demic and Student Programs at the Mercatus Center, a Research Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics, George Mason University and the Don C. Lavoie Senior Fellow in the F.A. Hayek Program in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Mercatus Center, George Mason University. Bob Elder is the Allen-Bradley Endowed Chair in Economics, and Chair of Depart- ment of Economics, Beloit College. Laura E. Grube is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Beloit College. Chuck Lewis is Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program, Beloit College. Catherine M. Orr is Professor and Chair, Department of Critical Identity Studies, Beloit College. Introduction 11 Introduction Warren Bruce Palmer1 t is customary in this introduction to write, “As the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. Pro- fessor of Economics, it was my pleasure to organize the Wealth and Well-Be- ing of Nations: a Forum in Honor of Miller Upton, and now, in turn, to in- Itroduce the Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well-Being of Nations, a selection of papers presented at the Forum.” Yet, these words fail to express the special pleasure of organizing the ninth Miller Upton Forum, which was special for featuring the remarkable Deirdre N. McCloskey as the 2016 Miller Upton Scholar and for bringing back former Be- loit College professors Emily Chamlee-Wright and Josh Hall, both of whom had previously led the Miller Upton Forum. Moreover, Emily, with emeritus professor Jeff Adams, was the original designer of the Miller Upton Programs, and she pio- neered the Miller