The obituaries of Albert Hirschman (like this obit in the FT) pointed me to some of his other books, in addition to [amazon_link id=”0674276604″ target=”_blank” ]Exit, Voice and Loyalty[/amazon_link]. I’ll be ordering [amazon_link id=”0691015988″ target=”_blank” ]The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Before Its Triumph[/amazon_link], of which the blurb says:

“In this volume, Albert Hirschman reconstructs the intellectual climate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to illuminate the intricate ideological transformation that occurred, wherein the pursuit of material interests –so long condemned as the deadly sin of avarice –was assigned the role of containing the unruly and destructive passions of man”

[amazon_image id=”0691015988″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph[/amazon_image]

More importantly, Deirdre McCloskey cites it in her marvellous book [amazon_link id=”0226556743″ target=”_blank” ]Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World[/amazon_link], in a section describing the emergence in the 18th century of “the emergence of the economy as an explicit object of concern,” the separation of the economic or commercial sphere from the political and social. Although capitalism is as out of fashion as it has been in a generation, it’s salutary to remember its origins as a positive social and political trend incorporating personal freedom, cultural innovation and material prosperity. As McCloskey put it in her previous book, capitalism is founded on [amazon_link id=”0226556646″ target=”_blank” ]The Bourgeois Virtues[/amazon_link]. Our current problems stem from the severing of market economics from its social roots.

McCloskey’s book has a Ferdinand Bol portrait of late 17th century Dutch wine merchants on the cover. I think I’ll need to go downstairs to ferret out Simon Schama’s [amazon_link id=”0006861369″ target=”_blank” ]The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age[/amazon_link], which I’ve not looked at for ages.

[amazon_image id=”0226556743″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World[/amazon_image]

[amazon_image id=”0006861369″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age[/amazon_image]