Deirdre 08-Feb-07 at 8:51 am

Dear Susan,

Yes, but such tragedies are sadly common. Aunt Harriet says something unkind to Uncle Harry at Thanksgiving dinner and they don’t speak for 20 years. So are our few chances for love thrown away with both hands.

John McCloskey is my brother. He stuck by me, as my mother and, after a while, my sister have, and all my friends!

Regards,

Deirdre

Stephen Kinsella 19-Mar-07 at 11:54 am

Prof. McCloskey,

We have never met, but I’d like use the comments section of your blog to thank you for writing “Other things equal: Aunt Deirdre’s letter to a graduate student”. It changed my life. I had just completed a 3 paper-theorem-proof standard issue thesis. By chance, I read your article addressed to the hapless, though insightful, grad student who wrote to you asking for advice in their first year. I decided to go to the US (I’m Irish), and do another Ph.D at the New School for Social Research on foot of your advice to him/her/me. The Ph.D is nearly finished after two years of work. I’m looking at Isaac Newton’s role as Master of the Mint, and as I chose my topic, I did so with your words in my mind:

“Ask what matters to you. Do it. Find out something about the world. Really find out. Really explain it, with reference to the great conversation of economics since 1776.”

Well, I guess I went a little before 1776, but anyway, thanks for the advice, and to borrow the previous comment-leaver’s phrase, ‘thanks for existing’.

All the best,

Steve Kinsella

Deirdre McCloskey 27-Mar-07 at 9:29 am

Dear Stephen:

I was bragging to Sandra about my Norwegian ancestors, but I guess we Kinsellas and McCloskey’s don’t need to mention the other part! I’m hoping to go to Ireland next year to see my ancestral graves.

Thanks, too, for your kind words about my squib. Yes. If we all in economics stopped playing games and started actually looking into the economic world with the passion of a C. Wright Mills or an Armen Alchian, to take two very different students of society, oh, what a time we’d have! I’ve heard about your work on Newton’s monetary machinations, and good.

I gave a talk a few days ago at Stellenbosch University in South Africa and converted some few to abandon statistical significance. But they asked plaintively, “What are we to do?” Well, be economic scientists, curious, broad and deep. About Mad Newton at the Mint, to take an example.

Anonymous 05-Apr-07 at 9:56 pm

Dear Steve Kinsella,

Always glad to talk, about two things:

1.) The bourgeois virtues

2.) Statistical significance.

Gotta focus! Always at my back I hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.

Regards,

Deirdre

Deirdre McCloskey 12-Apr-07 at 11:54 am

Dear Christina,

Thank my web developer Susan MacDonald for the web site! She thinks of it as a magazine with the subject of. . . moi! Great idea!

Regards,

Deirdre

Deirdre McCloskey 18-Apr-07 at 8:49 am

Dear Ms. Wall:

Thanks for your kind remark about Crossing. These are the days of the memoir, which irritates some people—but I think the more we see into each others’ lives the less can we hate. A certain kind of essentialist feminist (Germaine Greer, for example) just HATES gender crossers. I’ve never gotten it, but I suppose if I read a memoir by her I might!

Sincerely,

Deirdre McCloskey

Alice Verheij 22-Apr-07 at 3:29 pm

Dear Deirdre,

not spoken with you for a while but hope to meet you again in the near future. Any change of you coming to NL again this year?

Somehow both your book ‘Crossing’ and our conversation last summer have had great impact on me. It’s good to have an example when you travel through the transition. Love you for the inspiration.

We’re all still together at home and I started on my PhD on accessibility and completeness of transgender care in NL and it’s such a rewarding work! Also recently I started writing a play that will be performed for the first time in June. Truly a dream to work with professional actors on a ‘Festen’-like play concerning family relations and transsexuality. Amazing to see what these actors make of it.

Anyway, things are working out ok for us here and I sure hope it’s much the same for you.

Compliments on your beautiful website. What an improvement!

Love,
Alice Verheij
Netherlands

Margaret 30-Apr-07 at 6:18 am

Dearest Deirdre,
Not for publication, obviously - just the quickest means of communication as our email is down over the whole 5-day long weekend.
I’ve just read your revised “Signifying Nothing”. Slowly(!), in order to understand as well as possible outside my own “world”. If I’m reading correctly, I think you might like to re-proof 2 sentences, if there’s still time. (Though I know that the transfer to electronic format sometimes does create “ghost” errors, as with spacing and apostrophes.)
There seems to be a verb missing in the sentence: “We suspect, actually, that this last [???] why such energetic and intelligent economists…”.
And then, in the para starting “They appear to appreciate…”, did you mean “the purist metaphysics” or “the purest”? Or “purist” without the article?
Hope this is helpful, and in time.
Bloem is caught in a sudden severe cold front with night temperatures little above zero, BTW, but the days are wonderful - clear, sunny and bracing. Wish you could share it!
Fondest love and blessings, always,
Margaret

Karen Thomas 21-May-07 at 11:07 am

Linked to your site via PAE news! Greetings from a very cold Bloemfontein. I want to send you the CD which I never played to you …
Sarie Marais and all that!

Duilio de A. Berni 31-May-07 at 3:14 am

Hi, Deirdre:
I feel very confortable in the world of your books and ideas. A long time ago, I chose “Replete of prices and profits, acres and hand, economic science is the most measurable of all social sciences”. I thought it was in “Econometric History”, browsed in a Library. After reading the whole book in search of that phrase I realized it must have been in other book. No trace if it at “Google”, “Amazon” etc. Is it your phrase? Where was it published?
hug
d.

Dan Merilatt 05-Jul-07 at 9:45 am

As I long-time reader and former mediocre student of yours, I am delighted with your Bourgeois Virtues, Volume 1. So delighted, I offer the following unsolicited short review, paraphrased from a recent popular song:
“She may be wrong. She may be crazy. But, it just might be a lunatic we’re looking for!”
Not since my still inadequate reading of “the economists” have I reveled in such straight talk. Thanks for not equivocating.

Jia 14-Aug-07 at 7:59 pm

Hi Aunt Deirdre,

If I were your daughter , I would be very proud of having you as a Mum.

This is my current real thought. But three years ago when I first knew your cross-gender from reading your books, I felt very uncomfortable.I still remember I hided your book under other books to prevent that other people saw it. To my surprise, little by little that “uncomfortable” thing went away. I find I like your books. I like you.

What I want to say is ,maybe your kids are the same as me—they need some time. Be patient with them.

I wish your happiness every day!

bernardo 13-Sep-07 at 3:42 pm

Hi all,

if you have any idea of what will the FED do on September, 18th on the light of the recent market turmoil, feel free to leave your vote on my blog’s poll at:

http://www.thedailyeconomist.blogspot.com/

best,

Bernardo.

Bill 05-Jan-08 at 10:49 pm

Deirdre,

Although I am not surprised to see economists endorsing John Edwards, I am surprised that such a person would also call herself free-market. How do you connect the two?

Thanks,

Bill

Peggy 31-Jan-08 at 10:28 pm

Dear Deirdra,

I am a returning college student - I’ll turn 50 on Sunday -And I’m taking my first ever Econ classes. I am astounded by the seeming lack of concern for the effect of economic decisions on humanity.

After reading writings by early economic theorists, I was also astounded by their blatant racism. I was also astounded to realize that some current economic actions, Free Trade for example, still have at heart the notion that our way is civilized, their way is savage.

While looking online for sources that complile racist statements by economic “heroes” I was again astounded to find NONE so far.

But I did find your wonderful publication,
The Secret Sins of Economics. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Your wit, your excellent writing, your repentance! are all a breath of fresh air.

My son is a obtaining his PhD is Sociology at UC Davis and is one of the unloved in Sociology - He won’t work for the government and he’s studying the effects of the US military/industrial complex on human lives around the world.

Thank you again,
Peggy Kincaid
Nevada USA

Deirdre McCloskey 17-Feb-08 at 10:33 pm

Dearest Helene,

How lovely to hear from you! I’m doing fine, and want you and David to visit in my BIG loft apartment in downtown Chicago. There was some vague plan for me to give a talk at Poroi in IC in the fall, but I haven’t hear back.

Love,

Deirdre

Dan Merilatt 13-Mar-08 at 11:22 am

Gradually reaching the end of Virtues. I’ve only been at it for nine months!

At the end of Chapter 44 you say: “Knight and Merriam are not really undermining Christian orthodoxy and Christian ethics. They are misunderestimating them.”

You are not one to misuse words - even the ones you make up. But, did you mean to write “misunderstanding”, “underestimating”, both, or neither.

Thanks.

Ana 27-Mar-08 at 10:21 pm

Hello Deirdre:

I have read quite a few things about your academic work and your personal life, and let me tell you great value as a woman opens the door to all other persons (including me , of course) that just going to start this long transition. Excuse my little management articulated English (I am of spain)

More so, do not give up

Mike Johnson 19-Apr-08 at 4:50 pm

Prof. McCloskey,

I stumbled on your blog site by accident, but glad I did. I was a former undergrad econ student of yours back in the early 80s. I started out in political theory (John Nelson) and intellectual history (Alan Megil), took one of your courses on British Econ History and I’ve been hooked on econ ever since. What really hooked me was your stuff on medieval granaries. I also recall your exchanges with Stephen Fenoltea (sp?). Wrote a term paper on the medieval wine trade. Good times.

But I’m afraid I have to make something of a confession. I have gone over to the dark side. I now make my living praying to the gods of Chi-square, VAR models and translog production functions. Sorry.

I still live in the Iowa City area. I hope you have a chance to come back for a guest lecture sometime.

Thanks.

Deirdre McCloskey 29-Apr-08 at 3:00 pm

Dear Mike Johnson,

Nice to hear from you! The cure for the Dark Side is Ziliak and McCloskey, The Cult of Statistical Significance. I know you are a person of integrity, and know you’ll come back to common sense after you read it!

Regards,

Deirdre

Deirdre McCloskey 29-Apr-08 at 3:05 pm

Dear Dan Merilatt,

I was making a little joke on George Bush’s word, “misunderestimate” (sic). It’s actually quite a useful word!

Regards,

Deirdre

Carina Smit 02-Jun-08 at 7:27 am

Dear Prof. McCloskey

Over this past weekend I have read your article called “On not even knowing French” and your book on “Economical Writing” - a book which I wish I had read even before becoming a graduate student. For the very first time my writing mistakes have been pointed out under chapter headings (which was comforting in some way, because it implied that the mistakes were not unique). Although some people might experience this kind of critisism to be intimidating, I found it to be invaluable and encouraging to work hard on improving my writing. Thank you so much for this wonderful gift! It has made me enthusiastic about the whole writing experience and I can’t wait to put the book’s lessons in action.

Your article on being monolingual was most entertaining and I admire your determination to continue trying to learn various languages (especially my mother tongue, Afrikaans). To answer the question that you (perhaps rhetorically) pose in your writing: “ou” in Afrikaans is always pronounced like “oh” in English.

It has been wonderful to meet you in person and I wish you all the best.

Vriendelike groete from Stellenbosch

Carina Smit

Dan Merilatt 03-Jul-08 at 9:32 am

After it was announced that Mr. Friedman had received the Nobel Prize, one day he was lecturing on his permanent income hypothesis. He was describing the effects of small changes in income on current and future consumption. I commented that I thought I understood the hypothesis for small changes and asked whether the same effects could be expected from large discrete changes — like a $160,000 tax free lump sum cash award for example.

The class laughed and Mr. Friedman politely let them laugh and when it died down he looked at me and remarked that I apparently did not understand the hypothesis because, if I had, I would have understood that to the extent the $160,000 increment was expected it would have already been spent!

I tell you this story because after reading your Virtues, Smith’s Moral Sentiments, and a small smattering of other works of greater or lesser degrees of relevance, I have a question for you that might reveal my poor understanding of one of your points and, if so, I guess I’ll carry another embarrassment around with me. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained . . .

I gather that you think that Utilitarianism, the moral philosophy that seems to underpin most of modern economic thought, is too narrow for a rich moral philosophy and too weak to well support the discipline of economics.

I agree that as a guide for behavior, Utilitarianism will not do. Kenneth Boulding thought that rational economic man was boring and I think you might fault the model more severely. Even John Stuart Mill in On Liberty seems to abdicate it. I found the moral philosophy that you articulated in Virtues appealing and persuasive but is a rich moral philosophy needed by economics or for that matter any other subject studying human behavior?

Mr. Friedman’s “as if” construction in his Methodology of Positive Economics suggests to me that perhaps useful economic predictions can be generated from a theory based on the behavior of people acting as if they were only boringly rational utility maximizers. If so, does it really matter that Max U is morally deficient and Maxine π is cold, calculating, and uncaring? Can a fruitful economic theory be constructed using more morally well-rounded actors?

Do you think that by teaching utility maximization we are sanctioning it as a model of moral behavior? If so, it surely must be a good thing that capitalism swamps that influence by creating truly more virtuous folks.

Marco Scheele 25-Jul-08 at 9:09 am

Dear Deirdre McCloskey,

First of all i like to say what a brilliant website you have…one can even post a comment and have a reply (if one is lucky).
I heard about you from the Beyond Belief meeting almost a year ago. I watched the lectures on the internet.

Being an atheist this whole thing about having an ethical society without religion is something I like hearing as many informed views about as possible.

I haven’t read many economists books. Can you advice one for a lay person like myself?

And maybe you would like to say something about how you managed to become a successful academic with the specific speech defect like you have. As a matter of fact mine didn’t happen for that same reason; a remarkable likeness by the way. I wonder if you have some wisdom to share. Did you always had it and how did you refrain from becoming cynical?

Thanks in advance,
Marco Scheele

Anonymous 11-Aug-08 at 3:17 pm

Dear MARCO:

You can thank Susan MacDonald for the website! The brilliance is all her’s!

Getting ethics without God is the 18th century project (it begins in the 17th century with Spinoza and Hobbes), as for example in Kant or Smith or Bentham. I’m reading Fielding’s novel of 1749, Tom Jones, in which he has a philosopher character named Square (he as just been caught in bed with Molly) whose project is just this. I am a Christian, but remember being an atheist, and so try to accommodate to the strange atheist program!

The best books to get started in economics are (aside of course from my own) those of Russell Roberts (three very good novels) and Steven Landsburg.

As to stuttering, I still face telephones with fear, but slowly, slowly got more courageous. Public speaking it not too much a problem, as long as I don’t have to read anything.

Sincerely,

Deirdre McCloskey

Oliver 29-Aug-08 at 1:31 pm

Thanks for your reply and kindly remarks. It’s nice to learn you’ve had your eyes on Franklin. I agree the audience had to change, of course. Maybe it’s just that I worry about overlooking how people famous for one thing–by which they have acquired glamor–cause the social elevation and/or destigmatization of things only somewhat incidental, in terms of trends up to that time: Head-shaving after Sinead O’Connor, AIDS after Magic Johnson and to at least to some extent sex changing after Dierdre McCloskey. I imagine Franklin got the glamor as a high-court diplomat and for assuming this royal post as a rebel emissary and mere commoner from the colonies. Conversely, the rebels and revolution must have gained acceptance when the high courts accepted their emissaries.

Larry Lee 07-Sep-08 at 7:12 am

Sorry for the typo. The sixth line should read “…support programs causes each neural node to make incorrect choices…”

Deirdre 08-Oct-08 at 1:45 pm

Dear Kate,

You might look through the comprehensive list of books on the Industrial Revolution and economic history authored or edited by Prof. McCloskey:

http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/books.php

Sincerely,
Susan MacDonald
Editor, The Prudentia