Por qué el liberalismo funciona

People face two great threats, says Deirdre N. McCloskey, one of today's boldest and smartest economists and thinkers: tyranny and poverty. Both constrain the flourishing of the human being, the development of her creativity and the full potential that freedom offers. They are also the two ways that states use to limit the autonomy of their citizens and put them at their service. To overcome these two threats, and overcome the forces that, consciously or inadvertently, drive them, it is time to return to true liberal values, the corpus of ideas that, from the eighteenth century, allowed humans to progressively free themselves from the traditional chains of backwardness and submission. Little by little, thanks to these ideas and their application in technology, government and business, unprecedented prosperity was achieved not only in the economic sphere, but also in the scientific and cultural one. With his distinctive sense of humor, vast culture, and deep understanding of human values, McCloskey explores how liberalism leads to true equality, argues that it is an optimistic philosophy that relies on rhetoric and abhors coercion, and it maintains that it cannot prosper without an ethical foundation.