“Mazzucato describes herself as a fighter in a ‘discursive battle.’ Indeed. But if she wins the ‘battle’ in people’s minds about how innovation and markets work, we will retreat from the Great Enrichment, 1800 to the present, and the bettering of the wretched of the earth. Let’s not.” ~ “Deirdre Nansen McCloskey & Alberto Mingardi
“Let’s get on with it, then: honest courts, good schooling, non-extractive governments, property rights for squatters, free international and internal trade, employment laws that do not protect only the presently employed.” ~ Deirdre McCloskey
“Ideas are not all sweet, of course. Fascism, racism, eugenics, and nationalism are ideas with alarming recent popularity. But sweet practical ideas for profitable technologies and institutions, and the liberal idea that allowed ordinary people for the first time to have a go, caused the Great Enrichment. We need to inspirit masses of people, not…
“America cannot be the literal Top Nation forever, nor should it be, nor does it matter. Being smart and hardworking and fulfilled are what matter, not tiny percentage differences of income between rich countries, 10 percent plus or minus. America is not declining. In the modern world, no income per head actually declines in absolute…