Veblen Clark Lecture “How we (Actually) Got Rich and How the Whole World Can”

In the past two centuries a Great Enrichment has raised up the poorest among us, and will continue to do so into the next century. By 2100 everyone on the planet will have an American standard of living. How did it happen, and why is there cause for optimism about its continuing? In McCloskey’s lecture she says that it was not investment or exploitation, not a savings rate or an imperial adventure. It was ideas, and especially the idea -- shocking in 1776 -- that all people are created equal. In a word, "liberalism," defined as a society of non-slaves, made us rich, in goods and in spirit. If she's right, it changes all our ways of looking at the economy and history and politics