New Book: "Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All" by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All 
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Copyright © 2019 by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. 
Yale University Press 
For information, please e-mail sales.press@ yale.edu (U.S. office) or sales@ yaleup.co.uk (U.K. office). 
ISBN 978-0-300-23508-1

Contents 

Preface 

PART ONE
YOU SHOULD BECOME A HUMANE TRUE LIBERAL 
1. Modern Liberals Recommend Both Golden Rules, That Is, Adam Smith’s Equality of Opportunity 
2. Liberalism Had a Hard Coming 
3. Modern Liberals Are Not Conservatives, Nor Statists 
4. Liberals Are Democrats, and Markets Are Democratic 
5. Liberals Detest Coercion 
6. Liberalism Had Good Outcomes, 1776 to the Present 
7. Yet After 1848 Liberalism Was Weakened 
8. The “New Liberalism” Was Illiberal 
9. The Result of the New Illiberalism Was Very Big Governments 
10. Honest and Competent Governments Are Rare 
11. Deirdre Became a Modern Liberal Slowly, Slowly 
12. The Arguments Against Becoming a Liberal Are Weak 
13. We Can and Should Liberalize 
14. For Example, Stop “Protection” 
15. And Stop Digging in Statism 
16. Poverty Out of Tyranny, Not “Capitalist” Inequality, Is the Real Problem 
17. Humane Liberalism Is Ethical 

PART TWO
HUMANE LIBERALISM ENRICHES PEOPLE 
18. Liberty and Dignity Explain the Modern World 
19. China Shows What Economic Liberalism Can Do 
20. Commercially Tested Betterment Saves the Poor 
21. Producing and Consuming a Lot Is Not by Itself Unethical 
22. Trickle Up or Trickle Down Is Not How the Economy Works 
23. The Liberal Idea, in Short, Made the Modern World 

PART THREE 
THE NEW WORRY ABOUT INEQUALITY IS MISTAKEN 
24. Forced Equality of Outcome Is Unjust and Inhumane 25. Piketty Is Mistaken 
26. Europe Should Resist Egalitarian Policies
27. Piketty Deserves Some Praise 
28. But Pessimism About Market Societies Is Not Scientifically Justified 
29. The Rich Do Not in a Liberal Society Get Rich at the Expense of the Rest 
30. Piketty’s Book Has Serious Technical Errors 
31. The Ethical Accounting of Inequality Is Mistaken 
32. Inequality Is Not Unethical If It Happens in a Free Society 
33. Redistribution Doesn’t Work 

PART FOUR 
AND THE OTHER ILLIBERAL IDEAS ARE MISTAKEN, TOO 
34. The Clerisy Had Three Big Ideas, 1755–1848, One Good and Two Terrible 
35. The Economic Sky Is Not Falling 
36. The West Is Not Declining 
37. Failure Rhetoric Is Dangerous 
38. The Word “Capitalism” Is a Scientific Mistake 
39. Marxism Is Not the Way Forward 
40. Some on the Left Listen 
41. But They Have Not Noticed the Actual Results of Liberalism 
42. And Are Unwilling to Imagine Liberal Alternatives 
43. A Post-Modern Liberal Feminism Is Possible and Desirable 
44. Imperialism Was Not How the West Was Enriched 
45. Liberalism Is Good for Queers 
46. The Minimum Wage Was Designed to Damage Poor People and Women 47. Technological Unemployment Is Not Scary 
48. Youth Unemployment Is Scary, and Comes from Regulation 
49. Do Worry About the Environment, but Prudently 
50. Illiberalism, in Short, Is Fact Free, and Mostly Unethical 

Notes 
Bibliography 
Acknowledgments 
Index

Chapter 25 was first published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 2016. Chapter 35 was first published by Prospect magazine, March 2016.