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Deirdre Nansen McCloskey | |
| Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication
University of Illinois at Chicago Professor of Social Thought Academia Vitae, Deventer, NL Professor Extraordinary, Department of Economics, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa |
Deirdre McCloskey is an economist and economic historian who around 1980 got interested in the rhetoric of persuasion in her field, and then wider literary matters, such as literary and social theory. Her main project for the next few years will be writing a four-volume tome on The Bourgeois Virtues. Volume 1 was published as a trade book by the University of Chicago Press in 2006, and widely and on the whole favorably reviewed. She is a free-market economist, and so the book is theologically speaking an "apology" for capitalism. But she tries to be fair to her friends on the left and right. ...
The oddest personal fact about Deirdre is that until 1995 she was "Donald." She has written on the matter... Read entire text » |
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Our ability to engage in continuous conversation, testing one another, discovering our hidden presuppositions, changing our minds because we have listened to the voices of our fellows. Lunatics also change their minds, but their minds change with the tides of the moon and not because they have listened, really listened, to their friends' questions and objections.

"Arguably the most ambitious classical liberal academic project of the decade, The Bourgeois Virtues argues not only that the market economy is more efficient, but it makes us better, more virtuous people. ... McCloskey presents her case to a target audience that has been conditioned to throw rocks at the sound of the word 'bourgeoisie.' She balances her herculean effort with a conversational tone that doesn't compromise her erudition. By promoting hope, faith, love, justice, courage, thrift and prudence, this book manages quite successfully to defend the thesis that the market not only allows man to gain the world, but also helps him not to lose his soul."Read more on The Bourgeois Virtues || Praise for The Bourgeois Virtues
Dear Reader: This is a rough draft as of January 2010. The three asterisks *** or the bold or NNN (for a name) or DDDD (for a date) and the many pages at the end with "items [perhaps] to be inserted" indicate only some of the numerous things to be done. I welcome comments, directly at deirdre2@uic.edu or in the comments section of the online chapters.
"A Very Special Interview with Dr. Deirdre McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English and Communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Deirdre is a Significant Scholar on the history of Capitalism. She has been writing for decades on the connection between Ethics and Capitalism. Her book Bourgeois Virtues presents what the mainstream press calls 'the radical notion' that Capitalism is Good For Us, that Markets Improve Ethics and that Capitalism has made us better as well as richer. ... This interview provides wonderful background [on how capitalism] causes us to live in a safer, more generous and more wealthy society."