Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich

Distinguished professor emerita of economics and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago Deirdre N. McCloskey and professor of economics at Samford University Art Carden write in a surprisingly informal and conversational style about thorny, complicated matters. The authors make their case for free market economic liberalism, which they suggest should be called “innovism.” They debunk competing narratives of economic development, seeking to enlighten readers on how economic progress comes from ordinary people bettering themselves through “the Bourgeois Deal.” Acolytes of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand will welcome this ideological, full-throated defense of the market’s “invisible hand.”

Pessimists

The quality of most people’s lives has improved steadily and radically since the 1800s, and especially since the 1950s. The biggest winners of capitalism have been the poor of the world, McCloskey and Carden note. In the 21st century, life expectancy, education and food consumption continue to improve worldwide.