"So what is capitalism if not a system of institutionalised private greed and public cynicism? In a clever move, McCloskey escapes from the trap of talking about the ‘system of capitalism’ and what it allegedly demands, and instead talks about the people who live capitalist lives. This 'bourgeoisie' is ideologically held together by three central concerns, for equality, property, and, most especially, 'honourable work'; while sociologically it stretches broadly over the corner-shop owner and the university intellectual (people like us, that is), as well as Karl Marx’s standard factory owner."

"Relegating statistics on material gains to just a few pages, the book proceeds to analyze the market in light of the seven classical virtues, claiming that bourgeois work and capitalism both require and foster virtue. It also examines how both economists and philosophers commit similar errors in underestimating the importance of moral and spiritual motivations beyond utility maximization for market actions and in their fixation on calculation for decision rules in the first place. It closes by addressing several erroneous beliefs regarding capitalism, explaining why the market system does not require oppressing workers, fostering gluttony, maintaining inequality, or unjust zero-sum exchanges. [...] Readers will find the extensive citations from literature, art, and history entertaining and informative, and the scope of the study should provide food for thought on a wide range of topics. Most importantly, however, it illuminates the question at the heart of current debates over the market system and how it affects people."

"The heft, the air and the title of this book all promise a big thesis. But what the devil could that thesis be? At no point during my reading of the 500-plus pages — an experience by turns piquant, maddening, edifying and wearying — was I altogether sure. Sometimes the author appeared to be arguing that capitalism makes us virtuous. Sometimes she seemed to be saying that virtue is the most important ethical idea we have. And sometimes she more or less announced that Love Is Bigger Than Economics. Each of these is a potentially interesting claim. But where, amid the luxurious orgy of quotations, epigrams, pop-cultural and poetic allusions, charts, lists, etymologies, asseverations, innuendoes, zingers and brickbats, was the meticulous reasoning that might establish their truth? [...] McCloskey probably won’t sway many readers who do not already share her convictions, but for all the book’s flaws one can’t help being impressed by her verve, erudition and fitful brilliance."