Re-Evaluating the Bourgeoisie: A Parallel between Deirdre McCloskey and Sergio Ricossa

Alberto Mingardi ()

Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) – Schmollers Jahrbuch, 2020, vol. 140, issue 3-4, 319-340

Abstract: This paper compares Deirdre McCloskey’s reading of the “bourgeois reevaluation” with ergio Ricossa’s. Italian economist Sergio Ricossa was – like McCloskey – schooled in the neoclassical, formalistic tradition, but in time drifted toward a more “Austrian” approach, as he was influenced by the work of F.A. Hayek. Like McCloskey, in a number of works Ricossa aimed to vindicate the bourgeoisie, placing what McCloskey would later call “the bourgeois deal” at the source of modern economic growth. Ricossa and McCloskey were not connected, nor friends. Yet they both arrived at re-evaluating the bourgeoisie, explicitly linking their liberalism to the historical role played by a specific class. This paper will look at their respective paths, which in some respects are parallel, and will show how their common appreciation of the Bourgeois Era went hand-in-hand with libertarianism as a political philosophy and with a strong appreciation of the Bourgeois Era in history.

Keywords: Deirdre McCloskey; Sergio Ricossa; Bourgeoisie; Economic History; Classical Liberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 B10 B12 B15 B25 B31 B53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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