The Secret Sins of Economics

by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Deirdre McCloskey's work in economics always calls into question its reputation as "the dismal science." She writes with passion and an unusually wide scope, drawing on literature and intellectual history in exciting, if unorthodox, ways. In this pamphlet, McCloskey reveals what she sees as the secret sins of economics that no one will discuss—two sins that "cripple" economics as a "scientific enterprise."

Genres: Economics

62 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has been distinguished professor of economics and history and professor of English and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, including Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World.

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was doing an economics degree and dying of boredom. And then I found McCloskey.

Maybe the best introduction to the field. Though for leftist friends you’ll want Filthy Lucre instead, and work up to McCloskey’s hilarious shtick (“Workingmen of all countries unite! Demand capitalism!”)

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Economist Deirdre McCloskey writes a short (60 pages) and compelling essay on the field of economics. Here I will make it even shorter:

Virtues which are misidentified as sins: quantifying human behaviour, using mathematical reasoning, espousing libertarian politics
Venial sins: assuming that humans are fully rational agents
Mortal sins which are not specific to economics: ignorance of real-world institutions, ignorance of other disciplines, candid selfishness, personal arrogance
The secret sins of economics: qualitative theorems, misuse of significance testing

An interesting argument, although it was published in 2002 so with any luck the rest of the field has taken note of which criticisms are valid & important and at least made the attempt to address them. Ha ha ha.

[Andrew Feist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should be read by anyone interested in diving into economic theory. Although she fluffs everything full of her own questionable side opinions, she seems know her stuff. She definitely is on the mark about economic theory and cult of statistical significance. I look forward to reading more of her, as there is a great deal left out of this work, such as what theory in economics/social science could really look like beyond existence theorems.

[Parker Hewitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is actually more like an essay. It's less than 60 pages and yet, even at this length, it still feels unnecessarily long. I'm still going through Professor McCloskey's book "Why Liberalism Works," (which, by the way, is a very misleading title) but given that that book is newer and more up to date, I think it really diminishes the possible value of this book. The first half of this essay is dedicated to defending economics against some unfair accusations or justify some more valid criticisms by essentially saying, "well, everyone else does it too." McCloskey's main critiques of economics are articulated in her peculiar, nonchalant, verbose and poetic way by essentially creating categories of questions that we can strive to ask. A person may as a Why/Whether question or a How Much question. McCloskey would like to see a lot more of the How Much question being asked in a serious way by economists. She essentially wants them to stop acting like mathematicians making proofs based on theorems and models and get more into the data of things and have them try to act more like the sciences, like physics, that they envy. But even those who get into the data upset her because she is also very critical of the use of statistical significance. She doesn't really present an alternative here, she just says that all sciences that use statistical significance could stand to benefit from not using that as a standard as what matters and what doesn't. She encourages economists to engage more deeply with the history of their own subject and with fields outside of their own, like philosophy.

She has many positive things to say about the field of physics which is interesting to read because there are many similar arguments that go on inside the field today, at least if you believe talks and books aimed at a popular audience (which i think is typically a silly thing to do). It is nice to read praise on the subject I hope to become an expert in, especially from an academic I have great respect for. McCloskey has this weird quality where I feel like I'm disagreeing with or not being convinced by a lot of what she says, and then later find myself believing things that I didn't before that she stated at some point. She writes a lot about rhetoric, which has encouraged me to enroll in a class about the rhetoric of science at my university when the most engagement I had had with rhetoric before was the absolutely terrible book "Thank you for arguing."

McCloskey gives me a similar feeling while I'm reading her that I get from Thomas Sowell. Now with Sowell I disagree a lot more than I do with McCloskey, especially in his essay collections that I occasionally poke through and especially especially on any of his takes about social issues. But despite this fact they both write things that are very compelling to me and make me want to read more and more. Most of the time I spend reading them I feel like I'm getting a lot of the same stuff that I've heard before from them, Deirdre loves to repeat in Why Liberalism Works that the great enrichment occurred because of bourgeois values and has benefited everyone, but every now and then you find beautiful turns of phrase or gold nuggets that typically reward the effort you have to put in to follow the torrent of references she produces. It's a fine book that is probably still topical now for economists, just like the work of J.S. Bell would still be useful for physicists to take more seriously, but there really isn't much of a reason to buy this one, or to read it when her newer work makes many of the same points in a more convincing and memorable way.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Secret Sins of Economics (2002) by Deidre McCloskey is an entertaining short rant. McCloskey details what she sees as wrong with economics. McCloskey is a professor of economic history.

First McCloskey writes about what are not sins of economics, namely quantifying things and being pro-market. McCloskey also identifies the idea that humans are fully reasonable as a weakness. She also describes how economists are often focused on their own field and are arrogant.

But after the entertaining build up McCloskey identifies what she sees as the two great sins. These are qualitative theorems and an obsession with significance testing that ignores the magnitude of effects.

It’s entertaining and well worth a read. It’s also so nice and short. McCloskey has a pdf copy on her website that is free to download and read.

[Antonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

An essay worth reading

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Statistical significance is neither necessary nor sufficient for a result to be scientifically significant. Most of the time it is irrelevant.

Witty and concise long essay on the forgivable and unforgivable sins of economics. The latter, according to McCloskey, includes the heavy emphasis and reliance on statistical significance and the use of qualitative theorems and measures of statistical significance without quantitative import, or “oomph”, as she puts it.

[Ashley Shan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's okay... I don't like her writing style though. And she is not legitimately a Chicago School economist.

[Roland Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good review of what is wrong with economics as a 'science'. I don't know how influential this book was but many of the arguments are commonplace today.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A neat little criticism of the methodologies of modern economics.