Interviewing Deirdre McCloskey

In the interview with Deirdre McCloskey, she first apologizes for her long book; I appreciate this. She then talks about economics.


She talks about several different parts of her book. First, she states how the economy is a world of made up stories and as long as the stories are "stories of cooperation, we celebrate it and the working lives it is made up of." She then goes on to talk about how economics can be either in math or in words but it is still rhetorical. McCloskey says she is a humanist who is not making ridiculous claims one way or the other about economics but is simply pointing out the ironies and metaphors. McCloskey talks about socialism and capitalism and how she wishes there was a set way to show which one is better, but there simply isn't and all we have is a "tangle of human interest and passion." However, she does show that capitalism is better for the poor and while at first it doesn't seem good, a "flourishing human spirit" comes from it. Socialism on the other hand starts with the flourishing artwork, music, and books but leads to a worse state after, seen in Russia. McCloskey then goes against the liberals who think they have a monopoly over political language proving that capitalism is good. McCloskey ends the interview talking about how people need to suck it up when reading about her references to God.


I found McCloskey's view on knee-jerk disbelief very interesting and intuitive. She shows how knee-jerk disbelief is when people jump at the chance to voice their opinions when they have nothing to back it up with. In class with Rizzo we talked about how one of the three reasons to study economics is so that we know the facts so we aren't just doing these knee-jerk disbeliefs where we oppose whatever argument is made with know supporting evidence. McCloskey shows these disbeliefs in talking about McDonalds and Wal-Mart and how people hate these companies although they are good for the poor and the economy. I hear this everyday when people say don't buy from the big businesses and I see bumper stickers that say buy locally. People need to get their facts straight because there is nothing more annoying than people who have empty arguments that then try and go into a economic-political debate.


I also liked McCloskey's view on living life and how it is much more than material goods. Although she seemed a little morbid in this section showing how Hitler had more of a point to his life than most people, I still approved her cat metaphor in how we simply live in the moment with our material goods. She did start to get preachy here saying how humans need faith, love and hope in their lives.


McCloskey says that we need to reform the way in which we talk about the market but doesn't give a way of doing this. How should we reform the way we talk about economics and the market? McCloskey writes as a Christian, conservative, big-business writer. Why should her opinions of economics be respected anymore than her counterparts? Why did Rizzo give us one persons view on the world of economics without a Hindu, liberal, socialist's opinions? In her talk about how Capitalism is better than Socialism, McCloskey shoots down Socialism as it reverses human flourishing while capitalism leads to flourishing. She has one example: Russia and America. Her books were written in 2006 and 2010 and I'm assuming the interview was somewhere in the middle. But either way she has not looked at or given an opinion in Obama-care. Since all we can use is her interview, what would her opinions of Obama-care and a trend towards socialism be based on her arguments in this interview?


We read this piece perhaps just to see how knee-jerk disbelief is truly alive in the world and that's why we should study economics. But I think we also read this piece to learn more about the socialism and capitalism debate and about how economics is rhetorical.