Follow-up to bourgeois virtues
Jimmy Buffett and the Bourgeois Virtues
Jimmy Buffett was known for his “tropical rock,” whose music and lyrics borrowed liberally from rock, country, calypso, and island life. He sang with Frank Sinatra and Alan Jackson, and covered Old Hank. But he was also a lifelong entrepreneur – and erstwhile journalist – much like the great French economist Frédéric Bastiat. AIER is the home of the Bastiat Society, “a global network of individuals committed to advancing free trade, individual freedom, and limited government.” AIER is also the home of the Sound Money Project, something Jimmy knew about: “Now I got quarters in my loafers, tryin’ to fight inflation/When it only used to take a cent.”
Jimmy’s unflagging entrepreneurship embodies the “bourgeois virtues,” about which my AIER colleague and friend Art Carden has written with his mentor Deirdre McCloskey. Art is a Senior Fellow at AIER and Dr. McCloskey is a contributor. I don’t know if either is a fan of Jimmy Buffett.