As a 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 (more…)

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 (more…)

Dear Deirdre, First off. Thank you for being unorthodox. Always an attractive 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 slightly anarchistic liberal reading group, as we call it. Liberal in the continental sense, of course. (more…)

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 (more…)

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 (more…)

Professor McCloskey, I wanted to send you a quick note of encouragement. This semester I am taking a history of economic thought class here at UNI. We recently were discussing Thorstein Veblen, while researching a paper on him I came across some of your work, specifically The Bourgeois Virtues. I started reading it this week (more…)

View the video of McCloskey’s talk on Bourgeois Virtues, March 19, 2009 (10 min.)
See also the Bourgeois Virtues webpage

John Mackey [photo: Dan Winters] From an article in the New Yorker by Nick Paumgarten, “Does Whole Foods Know What’s Good for You?” Prudentia discovers John Mackey’s book interests: He sits in a recliner, surrounded by stacks of books. He gives them a good working over, marking them with underlinings, highlighter, and Post-its. He is, (more…)