I’m an economist but also teach and write on history, English, communication, philosophy, art and cultural studies. As May West might put it, “I was Snow White . . . but I drifted!” Until 1995 I was named—and was—”Donald.” Raised in Boston, I’ve worked always in the Midwest, at the Universities of Chicago, Iowa, and now Illinois at Chicago. Married for 30 happy years, with two grown children (who alas have not spoken to me since 1995), I live on Printer’s Row in Chicago with my Norwich terrier named Will Shakespeare and my Episcopal church across the street—which is why I’m always late for church!

Posted by Deirdre on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007, at 6:50 am

  1. Dear Deirdre,

    Tragic, about your children. Utterly tragic. Their regret will be late. John McCloskey is a co-author of one of your forthcoming volumes on bourgeois virtues. Any relationship?

    Best, Susan

  2. 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

  3. Hi Deirdre!
    I still remember when you told me, in Oslo, during the IAFFE Conference 2001, that your kids didn´t have any contact with you.
    Anyway, as I see, you are doing great! I am happy to visit your new website and to be able to, somehow, keep in touch with you.
    In case you don´t remember me, I got married and changed names, but I used to be Sandra Lerda at the time we even had some e-mail contact and so on.
    I still think Crossing is one of the best things I have read in life, even when I also like your other writings in Economics. I started reading you when you were Donald. I was writing my master’s thesis, beginning of the 80´s, when your writings helped me for the first time…
    Well, so much to say…
    Much love, and as we say in Swedish, Thanks for existing! (Tack för att du finns!)
    Sandra

  4. 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

  5. Dear Sandra,

    No, tack for att DU finns! It is such a pleasure to get such a nice letter—not all blogs have many nice letters!—from the land of my ancestors. . . well, at least 1/4 of them. We come from Handanger (in the glorious West, I say to you non-Norvegans).

    Crossing was a hard book to write. I keep wondering if I should write another memoir, but my life since then has been sooo boring! My mother says wisely, “Don’t do anything else more interesting!”

  6. 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.

  7. Wow! Thanks for your kind words, they mean a lot, obviously.

    And if you’re heading our way, maybe I could persuade you to come give a talk at UL?

    Failing that, I’d love to buy you a beer and have a chat when you’re here.

    Best,

    Steve

  8. 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

  9. Dear Prof. McCloskey,

    I absolutely love your website! Thanks for all the information that you share. I can’t wait for the opportunity to take one of your courses. I have so many questions for you…especially since my dissertation in economics focuses on the auto industry and England.

    Many greetings to the mini-Bard.

    best regards,
    Cristina

  10. 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

  11. Dear Prof McCloskey,

    I just wanted to let you know how much your memoir, Crossing, impacted my life. Your book was assigned for my feminist philosophy class. You allowed me to consider what it is to be a woman in a new and refreshing way. Thank you so much for allowing me to be an observer in your fascinating life.

    Many thanks,
    Kim Wall

  12. 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

  13. Good blog! Thank you.

  14. 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

  15. Lieve Alice,

    Lekker van je te horen! Juist: de website is heel beter, ja? Susan MacDonald hebt het gemaakt.

    Ja, ik kom vroeg of laat naturlijk naar mijne geliefde Nederland. Maar niet dese somer.

    Liefs,

    Deirdre

  16. 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

  17. Liewe Margaret,

    I am so glad you wrote, as I lost all my e-mails from when I was in Bloem, and was only gradually realizing I’d have to do some research to get back in touch!

    Thanks for the proofing: our standards in economics in such matters do not come close to those in medieval studies!

    Baie liewe,

    Deirdre

  18. 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!

  19. Liewe Karen,

    What a lovely idea! It’ll help me get my Afrikaans in order before I come back next March. Do you mean “send” by mail? If so, 720 S. Dearborn St., Unit 206, Chicago, IL 60605. If my e-mail, deirdre2@uic.edu.

    Bloem doesn’t know “cold”! Try minus 15 degrees C in Chicago this January!

    Liewe,

    Deirdre

  20. 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.

  21. Caro Duilo,

    I’m not sure where exactly. But in a month or so all my articles will be up on line at my new web site, deirdremccloskey.org. Then we can search for it!

    Regards,

    Deirdre

  22. 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.

  23. Dear Dan,

    Nice to hear from you! I’m delighted that you find the book interesting.

    Regards,

    Deirdre

  24. 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!

  25. Dear Jia,

    Thanks. I know the feeling—of being ashamed at first, then accepting of oneself, and finally comfortable in a new skin!

    Regards,

    Deirdre

  26. 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.

  27. Dear Madam

    It is with great exhilaration that I stumble on your name while surfing the net to understand the queer feelings of light and epiphany within …

    I am a 40 year old male who just graduated as an accountant but have some impairment to account for the indescribable sentiments that bubble inside.

    But then I notice an economist who made some grounds. And I start to feel reassured of my sanity, humanity, maleness or whatever.

    Thank you for being here.

    For today it is just a hello. But I look forward to read your books and know you better. In order to accept myself better.

    My love to you.

  28. 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

  29. Dear Bill:

    John Edwards is one of two candidates—the other is the wacky and wonderful Ron Paul, for whom I have voted before—likely to actually carry out “change.” As Edwards says, largely to deaf ears, the only relevant “change” is breaking the Iron Triangle in Washington.

    As to “calling myself” a free market economist, well. . . my writing speaks to that!

    Regards,

    Deirdre

  30. 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

  31. Hie Deirdre, I am finishing your book, crossing a memoir and wondering how you are doing now. What an Odyssee that crossing trip, you’re amazing!!! Well I want you to know that if ever you come back to Iowa City we would be delighted to have you for a fancy French meal at home!!!
    Hélène.

  32. 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

  33. Dear Peggy,

    Your experience is typical of people who come to economics after having seen some of life! Don’t despair. Hidden inside a somewhat crazy field are humanists. Try Kenneth Boulding, for example, or the LATER works of Deirdre McCloskey!

    Regards,

    Deirdre McCloskey

  34. 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.

  35. Prof. McCloskey,

    Do you know if you will be teaching a graduate course at UIC in the fall? I am dying to take one of your courses.

    all the best to Will,
    Cristina

  36. 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

  37. I don’t remember when was the last time I saw such a narcissistic website, self-congratulatory and self-obsessed. Perhaps in tandem with the author’s push of the idea of ethical capitalism, a lot of self-promotion does not go unnoticed.

  38. 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.

  39. Dear Prof McCloskey, I read economics at Cambridge Univ. closing in on ten years ago and I am currently writing on my PhD in Evolutionary Economics. A part of which is related to gender issues in economic theory. While we were covering the UK Ind.Rev. as part of the Cambridge Tripos, I seem to recall that Don McCloskey had a slightly different take on the benefits for women during the early (pre-)phase of the Ind.Rev. than Deirdre has - do I recall this correctly and might you be so kind to point me to exemplary publications of yours. I went trough papers I have and your posted articles, but I just cannot pinpoint the two opposing statements I seem to recall. I think the context might have been the enclosures, predicating a structural change. Thank you very much, best Patrick

  40. 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

  41. Dear Lena,

    Yes, of course. If a website can’t advertise I don’t know what it’s for! I take it you are anti-capitalist. Care to argue the case beyond silly sneering?!

    Regards,

    Deirdre McCloskey

  42. 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

  43. Dear Diedre.

    First off. Thank you for being unorthodox. Always an atractive quality in classical liberal people.

    I’m just getting started on your “virtues”, and plan to make it the topic for one of my reading groups, namely the slightely anarchistic liberal reading group, as we call it. Liberal in the continentel sense of course.
    Could you recomend a few other works along the same note, either agreeing with you or in opposition?

    Again thank you for your work.

    Kim Hvid Johnsen
    Grad. student
    univeristy of copenhagen. dep. of history

  44. 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

  45. Dear Professor McCloskey, I met you briefly at the EHA Meetings at Rutgers when I was the secretary of Professor Tom Weiss at KU. I was so impressed by you since I saw and when I listened to your speech I was astounded with the strength, the wisdom and the conviction you convey. You told me that to fight the establishment I had to be one of them, so I finished my PhD from Kansas a couple of years ago. It took me way over 2 years to write a CGE with four countries involved! I returned to Caracas three weeks ago. I cannot but think of all those people that love the revolution only when happens somewhere else…It is almost a crime to be a free-market person here. I would love to receive some wise words from you about the tragedy we are living here. Thank you for fighting for all of us. You look so beautiful and happy that it makes me believe there is “divine justice” after all. With all my respect, Marian Martinez

  46. 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.

  47. Sorry to take so long to reply to KIM, to CARINA, to MARIAN, and to DAN. I should look at the blog more often, but the truth is I’m not a bloggy sort of person!

    Dear KIM:

    Thanks for thanking me for being unorthodox. I don’t try to be. I just try to say things that are (1.) true and (2.) at least mildly surprising. It turns out that if you pursue those ends you end up discovering that much of what people say is mistaken or irrelevant (e.g. “The coefficient is significant at the 5% level”). The books that would converse with me are mostly cited in the book, so watch for whom I seem to be talking with—Marx, for example; Weber; other lesser lights.

    Sincerely,

    Deirdre

    now, Dear KIM:

    I’m glad you liked Economical Writing. The book (really a little pamphlet), though, is nothing special, you will find: there are lots of good guides to learning that part of being a scholar, more even than guides to statistics. Ek wil Afrikaans om te lerer, maar the mixing with het Nederlands, and my pathetic linguistic abilities, will probably stop me!

    Sincerely,

    Deirdre McCloskey

    and now, Dear MARIAN,

    Congratulations on the PhD! You have the Lord’s work to do in Venezuela. Don’t risk your life, but quietly point out that a free society is a better one all around, even richer. The only two countries in the Caribbean basin that have not grown at all since 1959 are Haiti and, naturally, Cuba. Everwhere else incomes have more than doubled in real terms.

    But the big thing is freedom. Riches without freedom shouldn’t interest us. Freedom without riches doesn’t happen, not in the long run.

    Sincerely,

    Deirdre McCloskey

    and finally, Dear DAN:

    You ask if a rich moral philosophy is needed by economics or other studies of human behavior. Well, sometimes yes and something no. If we’re studying covered interest arbitrage, no. In that case a very simple characterization of people as Max U will do fine. So too of lots of other situations that we economists like to shock our relatives with. It’s good stuff. I’ve written whole books defending it.

    But what is the merit of sticking to the Max U model in cases where it doesn’t work well? The as-if stuff is often not persuasive when you get down to it. You love your wife, I’ll bet. So you defend her from assault “as if” your reason was to protect the future stream of meals she is going to cook for you. Whoops. Something is screwy.

    We do seem to teach ethics when we teach economics—look at the interesting (if somewhat weak) results about the effects of taking an economics course—because we do teach utilitarianism. Again, utilitarianism is by no means all bad or idiotic. If you’re proposing a new runway for O’Hare airport we’ll want to see a serious cost-benefit study, and we’ll have to aggregate dollar votes to make sense of it. That’s OK and an important contribution of economics to a good society.

    Regards in Smith,

    Deirdre

  48. 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

  49. I just watched online the recording of your Beyond Belief talk, in which you were cautious not to explain what sparked innovation in 18th c. England except to argue that it was ideological. I was surprised at your restraint, because it seems like you had the makings of a nice just-so story there on the counter you’d laid out. At least as one push in the direction of ignition, how about the rise to international celebrity and to statesman stature of Ben Franklin, who was a paradigm “self-made man”? (Note you even have a literal spark figuring in that story line, as well as a Leiden Jar, I believe). Part and parcel of Franklin’s personal rise would have been the success of the American revolution, by which a bunch of entrepreneurial frontiersmen were recognized as having created a sovereign and independent society in the New World. Also aren’t Americans famous at least among ourselves for our resourcefulness and ingenuity? I could believe a lot of this was involved in developing the New World. To be successful in a New World–faced with new problems, new resources and a very large newly imposed cost and delay in delivery of hardware from the previously established providers–had to have taken ingenuity. You even have patents entering as Article I of the new Constitution. The ideology of self-making may just go along with imperial expansion–allowing the rise of new Roman families to prominence alongside older ones, and necessitating more democratic governance. You could say new land begets a renegotiation of the pecking order, or social standing, which is chiefly what we compete for, once safe, sheltered, fed and watered. O.K. Done rambling. Enjoyed your talk!

  50. 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

  51. Dear OLIVER:

    [Sorry about the "anonymous to MARCO: I forgot to put my name in].

    I think you make a promising suggestion, the more promising as I am gradually getting more sympathetic with non-linear dynamics as a characterization of history and life. A long time ago I wrote “History, Differential Equations, and the Problem of Narration,” History and Theory 30 (1, 1991): 21-36, available on the website, which would allow for small things like Dear Ben’s amazing personality to matter in big events. I have a chapter about Franklin in Bourgeois Rhetoric (vol. 3 of my project The Bourgeois Era0, which willl soon be available. I think the article from which the chapter comes is somewhere in my CV.

    But on the other hand the audience had to change, and to start treating as good such a bourgeois type as Franklin. So there’s a changing audience, isn’t there?

    Sincerely,

    Deirdre McCloskey

  52. 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.

  53. I have come to your website by way of Martin Durkin (Channel 4 BBC producer). I am an early retired medical doctor with a background in physics and engineering. I am as yet unschooled and unread in economics, but have started Hayak’s Road to Serfdom as a beginning. Considering this thought: If we posit a neural network consisting of each individual human in the world, and consider just the aspect of making purchases of all types (business and personal) then the problem of prices (wholesale, retail etc.) being skewed by any government support programs causes each neural network to make incorrect choices based on erroneous data such that the whole system must inevitably collapse. It would seem a graduate student could model this on a computer and show that increasingly erroneous prices cause faster collapse.

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

  55. Dear Prof. McCloskey,

    Sorry for writing a rather tedious email but I am going nuts trying to find a chapter by you that I read about ten years ago. Possibly the chapter itself is much older than ten years. It begins with an extremely long duree look at the significance of the industrial revolution, placing it in the context of 2000 (5000?) years of western history. It ends with a discussion of how economic historians would do well to turn to Smith’s argument about persuasion. Considering your recent output, this chpate rmust be rather old. Anyway, if you have any clue what I am on about, then I’d much appreciate a reference.

    I met you briefly in Canberra in 1996 as I was a student assistant at the Nicol Smith Conference. I remember you with deep admiration - it was such a momentous time for you.

    Best, Kate

  56. 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

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