The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth.

• Author: Wilkinson, Will
• Position: Book review

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth Benjamin M. Friedman New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 570 pp.

Benjamin Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth is magnificent and flawed. It is a work of astounding scholarship and exhilarating intellectual imagination as well as disappointing partisanship and theoretical fragility.

Moral Consequences is primarily an extended defense of the hypothesis that steady economic growth "fosters greater opportunity, tolerance of diversity, social mobility, commitment to fairness and dedication to democracy" (p. 4). The hypothesis is defended with a spectacular range of evidence from disciplines including economic and political history as well as popular culture and literature. However, as the book proceeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to say what exactly Friedman means by "moral consequences." And that in a nutshell is the big problem for this big book. As Friedman shifts without comment or justification from a broad Enlightenment conception of moral progress to a rather parochial American welfare-statist conception of political morality, the nature and importance of the dependent variable in Friedman's equation becomes ever more elusive. Without a rather more rigorous normative framework, the reader is left arguing with the author about whether the examples he has chosen to prove his point really count for or against it.

Moral Consequences has five parts. Part One sets out the idea of growth, traces the historical connection between the idea and reality of growth to the Enlightenment ideology of moral progress, and lays the micro-level psychological foundations for his macro-level argument. Part Two defends the hypothesis in the context of American economic and political history, attempting to show that economic expansion has been associated with openness, tolerance, and democracy, while contraction has been associated with xenophobia, protectionism, and political exclusion. Part Three tests the hypothesis in the context of the histories of Britain, France, and Germany. Part Four tackles issues of economic development and globalization. Part Five contains a litany of policy recommendations for promoting growth in America.

The psychological mechanisms discussed in Part One that create the basis of Friedman's larger argument deserve special attention. Zero-sum games bring out the worst in us. If I believe your gain is my loss, I may become aggressive in ensuring that you do not gain. The...