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Deirdre N. McCloskey: "Raising the minimum wage does not mean there will be fewer poor people"

2021-05-09T19:33:04.226Z


The American economist and historian has been listed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Economics. Liberal, says the threat to the environment is exaggerated


Economist Deirdre McCloskey, at her home in Chicago on May 4, Jamie Kelter Davis

She defines herself as a quantitative, free-market, postmodern, Episcopalian Aristotelian feminist.

In an interview at her home in Chicago, she adds: "And a Boston-born American Midwest woman."

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, 78, has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in economics several times.

The book in which he recounted his transition from man to woman,

Crossing

, belonged to the list of the most prominent by

The New York Times

.

He evolved from Marxism to liberalism and is now writing the epilogue of the volume

El manual liberal

, Deusto, with texts by, among others, Mario Vargas Llosa, María Blanco and Carlos Alberto Montaner.

QUESTION.

You are an optimist within the ominous melancholy that seems to dominate the world.

ANSWER.

I am!

I don't understand why people are pessimistic.

As an economist, but especially as a historian, I am able to appreciate the long journey and I know that the Spanish were very poor in 1930 and today they are not.

I do not blame anyone, it is very difficult to overcome pessimism when it is amplified every day, whether by academics or columnists expressing pessimism almost with pride.

Or politicians who terrorize people, with fear of foreigners, with pessimism about the economy ... The business of populism that we see growing every day is to make people fear.

P. It is, then, only well-meaning academics who have been warning of an offensive against liberal democracies for some time.

R.

Oh no! That threat exists, it is real. Sometimes it is not so clear where it comes from, but almost always it is fascism in any of its expressions. Populist fascism, that's the great danger. You just have to look at France. Marine Le Pen could be the next president of the Republic - although I think she will lose in the second round - but in the meantime that breeding ground grows and can be exacerbated if there is a tragic event that shocks society. Look at the Trump years, the world was going to end. Trump has been a plague, not only for the United States. I think we have used little that word that begins with f, fascism, and we should use it more because these people are fascists, as Franco or Mussolini were, and now they are in many places, either in Bolsonaro's Brazil or Duterte's Philippines.Perhaps the worst thing about Trump is that he has given other politicians legitimacy to emulate his model. And we have been lucky that Trump is an idiot, if not ...

Q. After four years of the Trump Administration and with 70 million votes under its belt in the last elections you lost, is the United States still the liberal beacon in the world?

A.

There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a great test.

Can we continue to be the beacon of liberalism?

I would say yes.

Because Donald Trump has been a criminal who should be in jail.

But make no mistake, Trump is not finished.

I have a cousin who lives in Arizona and has horses.

So far everything normal, right?

Well, he wants to buy a weapon to defend himself against those hordes of immigrants who are going to take our jobs.

He voted for Trump and bows to the leader, and there is no greater proof of fascism than that.

Q. With your liberal profile, libertarian as you say, what do you think of Biden's defense of the role of the federal government, with that massive injection of money for jobs, infrastructure, social protection ...?

R.

Biden is doing an excellent job.

But mainly because it is not causing panic among people.

It does not have a fear speech.

Biden is good for the country, even though I disagree with much of the Democratic proposals.

I am not a Democrat.

I am liberal.

I do not think that raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour will make there less poor, almost certainly the opposite will happen: there will be no work.

Q. What other parts of the Biden-Harris Administration's agenda do you not commune with?

R.

With your environmental proposals, the threat to the environment is greatly exaggerated.

It is not as serious a problem as world peace or poverty.

And let me, you know something is wrong when a Swedish schoolgirl becomes the hero of the environmental movement.

We are not thinking like adults.

Q. Thinking like adults ... You say in the epilogue of

The Liberal Handbook

that "liberalism is adultism."

A.

Many people like to be told what to do.

And that leads to childish freedom.

Under the definition made [in 1819 by the French philosopher Benjamin] Constant, there are two types of freedoms, the ancient (the freedom of the ancients) and the modern (the freedom of the moderns).

The latter is being able to govern yourself, with what you earn with your effort, honestly, being honest.

The freedom of the ancients is what gives you the right to participate, to vote.

Humans want both freedoms.

But when you like to be directed, you end up having a childish freedom;

you renounce to govern yourself.

Today people demand men mounted on white horses to save them: more Mussolinis, more Perones, more Putins !, who impose illiberal statism.

Q. You also say that "Latin America is full of child adults."

A.

Yes, it is tragic.

Argentina is the best example.

Venezuela is an absolute catastrophe.

P. You have been a Marxist;

colleague of the inspirer of the free market,

Milton Friedman

;

you have been a teacher;

it has approached the Austrian school of

Friedrich Hayek

…, and today it demands for the world the economy of the human,

humanomics

.

A.

We are all or should be Marxists at 20!

The economy of the human is very simple: apply the humanities to economics, philosophy, literature, history ... Both Marxists and the bourgeoisie simplify the human, the former because they fit a social class and the latter because only seen as profit maximization.

Q. You have made many changes, changed your ideas and at age 53 you changed your gender.

She went from being called Donald to being called Deirdre.

I imagine you did not feel discriminated against as a white student at Harvard and later a professor at the University of Chicago and Iowa. As a woman, have you felt discriminated against?

A. I had

only been a woman for a month when I experienced discrimination.

I was talking to a group of economists what economists talk about: economics.

Everyone knew that I had been a man before.

I made a comment and it went unnoticed.

Moments later, George said the exact same thing.

"George, it's brilliant!";

"George, they should give you the Nobel!"

It was the first time I felt discriminated against and the last time I enjoyed it.

I thought: Yes, I am a woman, as such I have been treated!

I got it!




Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-05-09

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