would have jobs other than being dope dealers and can because once it was. before the highly segregated history of chicago expanded to the west side, there were lots of factories, lots of jobs and now because of regulations of various kinds, it's not. it's a free zone, not all of it but some streets where -- where people by sheer act of will kept the street in good condition and they are not going to allow to even deal clueings but then for the most part it's very sad. >> you say regulations, give an example of one of those might be. >> well, to start in chicago, most placed of the united states it's worse than brazil or egypt, takes months. you have to get business license to braid hair, famous case, notorious case, to earn your idliving braiding hair; very common in the african-american community, you need a state license, what's that about? why should people have to jump to these hoops in order to start a -- start a business. in the 50's, african-american urban communities, south side of chicago or harlem, there were lots of successful small businesses and then increasing regulation, some of it very well meaning, people wanting to help poor people; thank god in chicago we don't have rent control, that's one thing that really hurts poor people but we have enough that west side of chicago is kind of sad, could be fixed, if you made the chicago where you don't have to be heavily taxed or regulated it would -- >> host: the trump administration create enterprise zones? >> guest: i don't think, maybe they did, i try not to look closely at the trump administration if i can avoid it. >> host: why is that? >> guest: i don't approve of mr. trump at all and i -- i think although on the one hand he's got some people in his administration deregulating, done intelligently is a good idea, g the federal government s one million separate regulations, one million. that's kind of crazy. that's one thing, some of that, but on the other hand, he's doing amazingly foolish economic interventions, his adviser in foreign trade is an economist with harvard ph.d named peter navarro and he's a very foolish man and i'm so ashamed that i have a harvard ph.d in economics louis will organize a group of us to turn harvard ph.d's on purpose, that peter navarro has one. >> in 2016 you wrote business when he does well. >> guest: he had taken $400 million he got one way or another from his father and invested in randomly stock portfolio his net worth would be higher now than he is. he did the trump steak, trump university, they all failed; something that bloomberg pointed out during the campaign, in 2016. bloomberg was a poor boy when he started and he became rich and he r became by doing well, by doing good. that's the way inoh is, if you're in business and you're choosing well, you may profit but the only way you may profit isis if people like your stuff, they don't like trump steaks or they find that the trump university degree is fraudulent, that's reduced everyone, everyone. >> host: isn't capitalism about taking risks? >> guest: yeah, it is about taking risks, so you make a mistake, then you get hit with it, trump makes a mistake all of the time in business and he loses all of the time by miracle, by the miracle of the electoral college he's now our -- our president but as a businessman he's terrible. as a tv performer he's good. like you, he should have stayed -- [laughter] >> host: how do you define your economic philosophy? >> guest: i'm a liberal in the root sense of the word. the word comes from latin liber which means a free person and this is very much in the minds of the romance when they used the word, contrasted with the slave, one very simple way to describe true liberalism is to say that everyone has the right to say no, that's all. the right to say no and that means that you -- you don't have -- if you're a woman you don't have to agree to be raped, so to speak. if you're in -- if you're an employee you don't like it, you could leave whereas i'm reading ra wonderful book, a novel abot the soviet union and the big thing there is that people couldn't say no. they were being bossed around by someone not voluntarily, you're an employee, i was an employee, we did what our bosses said we do, but we could always walk and that's really fundamental to a free society. the other way about talking about true liberalism is if -- if an adult society an economy, whereas a many of the other options, modern populism, the left or right, i don't know, fascism, communism, even the the social democracy want people to be children, i think it's good for us to be adult and that doesn't mean that we month -- shouldn't help people, i call myself a christian liberal. >> host: quote, i can understand the progressive point of view, i can remember its attraction, one the pages of the nation or latest, it feels like one is doing good. >> guest: absolutely. isn't that great by just listening i actually debateed him him last summer and they havem nome on a big screen, lare tv screen and 3 of us argued with him, i think people who feel like they want to do something for the poor should do something for the poor instead of just feeling good about reading "the new york times" and thinking, yes, i'm a good person, i care about the poor, for example, they should -- they should help the homeless as i have actually in a small way by having them come live with them, i had some homeless with me for 4 and a half years in my house and that doesn't make me a saint, that makes me m a person that wants to put money where her mouth is, but the key point is to let the poor people free so they can work and travel and live. you told me before you started that you have 2 acres of lawn, well, that's probably because in your town you can't build a house without a large lot, it's in the rural and that's to keep people out, that's what it's for and it's true in many, many places in the united states. people with 2-acre lot sitting there reading the nation magazine, i don't know. [laughter] >> host: i will say i am out of the country. i am out of the country, no rule. no restrictions, no rules. but i'm going to go back to why liberalismsm works, this is a quote from steven lansburg and you'll tell us who he is in the minute, public policy should not be designed to advance moral instinct and weu all reject evey day of our life. >> guest: that's right, moral instinct about not having to put your money where your mouth is and not -- not pushing people around, i mean, look, i've not ever liked being a boss than and there are people much better at administration than i am and if in a free labor market, of course,er the person can leaf if you don't like your management techniques or style but in any case, people shouldn't like being nasty. [laughter] >> there was bus driver, shuttle, your life would be better if you treated your customers with respect on buss in chicago where the bus driver is wonderful, welcomes people onto his bus and he goes for the snow and slush of chicago and proud to get there on time and that's -- that's how we ought to live. we ought the live the way our mom told us to behave. >> professor t mccloskey are you still teaching at the university of illinois in chicago? >> no, i taught in 2000 to 2015, i recommend it to you all. my joke is i retired in order to work more and i finished my trilogy on the economic and social history of the last centuries and i finished this-this book that came out in the fall on why liberalism works and i've got a new book coming up from chicago, chicago press in the fall which is kind of a pop version of all of these called leave me alone and i will make you rich. >> host: well, you talk about your trilogy. the bougreois equality, what's the definition of bourgeois? >> it's the definition of town's person, the leaders of the town, the merchants and the manufacturers and gilsman so forth. it was common term in english before the phrase middle class became common around 1800 the bourgeois started calling themselves middle class. there were the idea that there were priests, the nobility and then everyone else, the third estate and only in the last couple of centuries where we started to make distinctions among the various people and my point is really to argue against my friends on both the left and the right who who are contentious of people who like my -- like my -- like my grandfather, he wasn't contentious, he was electrical contractor and it was an honorable thing to do, if you're not cheating and you're doing your wiring of airports well, being paid for it, that makes -- what's odd about it it makes a sweet society. methodology marxist that you see especiallyly in the soviet, history of the soviet union, anyone who makes money is evil. you make money by doing things that people like, what exactly is the problem here? >> host: to go to bourgeois, however, harshly by rest of the world cannon, it's not surprising therefore that in the 19th century a bourgeois but christian europe invented the idea of socialism? >> guest: that's right. in fact, socialism is a secularized version of christianity inch many, many wa. of the apocalypse of the revolution as understood marxism, it's very similar to the -- to the second coming of christ. the -- the fervor of ideology among soviet communist and china, that when they were sent to the prison camp they thought it was okay because i -- must be that the party knows and there's a very similar attitude in -- in some versions of christianity in the post tells me i'm bad, i'm bad and there's a certain protestant element to it as well and it is quite strange but the west took hold which was most successfully economically and now it's spread to the world would have this idea of antiwealth thinking, i've just reread new translation by hardt of the new testament, the whole thing, it's not that large, it's a short book, there's really a socialist element to it christianity was a band of friend, among friends equality and consumption and work assignments and so forth is very sensible but doesn't make sense in the large society, it never has, when it's in large society it doesn't work, when it's about friends or family it works. socialism i'mal talking about. >> host: you identify as a long-time agnostic. >> guest: i was. >> host: now you're a christian liberal, what happened? >> guest: i am, well i changed gender in 1995. i was once donald, i'm deirdre and in years after that i felt that there was something more that iok needed to look into bui went to the catholics and they didn't like that and i went to the opposite which the pray to whom it may concern and i didn't like that and then i find episcopelianism and it was just -- it suited me very well. in fact, right from the begin ning, henry the eighth, the church of england middle road dbetween roman catholicism and that suits me. >> host: what it about it that suits i you, the customs? >> guest: but it's -- it's the whole spirit of the church i like. [laughter] >> guest: we are called in the united states we are called the frozen chosen because in virginia especially the upper class and new york for that matter, the upper class was episcopelian and it's not the frozenhe chosen that i like it, and they are jokingly, it's claimed that you don't really need to believe anything but you do the ceremony, you come to church, you do the mass. >> host: smells and the bells? >> guest: no, that's high church, my congregation -- i had a congregation in iowa and ones a year we would do smells and bells which is kind of fun in sense, it was fun, but it's a very flexible framework for searching because it's the journey, you don't have to believe in the virgin birth to be a practicing christian, it's the t practice that matter. i think that's true of economic performance, you don't -- you don't need to be a theorist of the economy to be an electrical contractor, you just do your job and you might learn from it after a while but there's mutually, mutual advantage here. as i get older i keep -- i keep trying to unify my thinking to see what cross there is, i have a paper i'm working on right now about theological free will which as you know is a very deep puzzling subject and free market they think they are connected. they are not opposed, so many modern american, you don't have to be a socialist to be a christian. >> host: deirdre mccloskey let's go to bourgeois virtues; i agree with nancy fulbrey that education should be financed from the center, maternity care and early child care should be expanded and state financed, inherent to access should be steep, corporate welfare should be eliminated, military expenditures should be cut to a tinny fraction of the present levels, that a modest minimum income should be given to every american that tax laws should encourage both men and women women combined paid work with family community work, we followers of adam smith are egaleterian. is there a but in there somewhere? nancy who is an old friend, she's a professor at the university of massachusetts -- massachusetts and should get the nobel prize wow won't. she was annoyed that i called her a marxist because she's not an orthodox marxist, she's to the left and i -- i saw joe hill last night, but -- as i said i'm a christian liberal which means thatat i acknowledge a responsibility that we have towards the poor, we can't just takeak a kind of country club view, oh, those are losers, this would be donald trump, those losers, i don't care about them, i've got my cadillac, all is well in the world, so on a lot of the policy proposals that nancy makes on the left, i agree. i may not quite agree with the -- with the scale she wants to -- wants to do them on but we agree that we should help poor people and pregnant women and so forth, that there should be a -- not a fist in people's face but an open hand of help. and that's perfectly consistent with what we call capitalism. think about it, the capitalist, i do not like the word, capitalist transaction, we buy a cup of coffee, that's for one thing, the sheer act of buying a cup of coffee is mutual, advantageous and both people are happy about it, the seller and the buyer but furthermore you'll notice in your own life that if you make a habit of going to that coffeeho shop you eventualy become friend, commerce creates friendship, the same way that church creates friendship, a church does or a -- a college or high school class or whatever. people get together, they're not hurting each other, they are not forcing each other to do things, they're allowed to say no and out of that comes what the french in the 18th century called, sweet commerce, that's right, and coercion that's necessary for most activities in the state, that's the nasty stuff, you have to pay your taxes, if you don't we will put you in jail, that kind of -- the threats from the irs and having minor none legal dispute with the irs right now, as so many of us do. i don't like coercion, i never have. >> host: you say that you don't like the word or -- >> guest: capitalist. >> host: the philosophy? >> guest: it's not the philosophy, it's the word i don't like. the word capitalist was used and was modified by mark to mean not just riching investors which is what the word men in french say around 1800, to name this whole group of people who are the bosses, right, and then after mark capitalism in german, capitalism becamee the characterization of our -- our commercial society. it's a terrible word. academically intellectually, scientifically it's a terrible word. it's convinced economists whether left or whatever and marxist and everyone else that capital a accumulation is the spring, the gears are necessary, the motive and the spring and modern and old life too, been enormous expanded and importance is innovation, it creates and this is a view of economics that i'm coming to take, the kind of economists that many, many years , misleading because it looks at the capital and we want the word letter c for other things, but capital is in the -- i thought that capital was motivational, that it did things. .. .. which i established in my first book of the street. it's not what made the economy rich which i established in the second volume. and it's not the future and past of our society. which i've argued in the third book. >> once a month we like to invite an author on to booktv and talk to him or her about his or her body of work. this month, each economic scholar and retired professor, deirdre mccloskey. here's just a sampling of the 23-24 books that she has written. beginning with "the bourgeois era" in 1998. "the rhetoric of economics". how to be human. the bourgeois virtues, dignity and equality came out in 2006, 2010 and 2016. economical writing, the 30 edition came out last year. as did her most recent, "why liberalism works". and we've quoted a little bit from that. we will put the phone lines on the screen if you like to participate. for those of you who live in the east and central time zones, 202-748-8201 for the mountain and pacific time zones. you can also send a text message. just include your first name in your city. 202-748-8003 is the number two text into. we will also scroll through our social media sites because you can make a comment on facebook or twitter or by email. as well. we will get to those quickly. first of all, what is this piece of paper i'm holding up here? >> i'm a kind of engineer at heart. i like to note magnitudes. what is it magnitude? which i think is the appropriate scientific attitude. the issue is quantitative, i have a rough idea. get a rough idea of what the magnitude is. and you strangely asked me how many words i had written that i made an estimate. 3 million. >> you were doing something like 10th to the ninth power. >> because i can't multiply very well. i have touse exponents . >> this is our quote from you in 2016 in the chronicle of higher education. i am a stutterer and i've noticed thatstarters are often good writers . - - stutterer's avoid words that they think or know they will block on and therefore are good at finding another expression. >> a terribly important example of this in our current policy is joe biden. i only learned about a month ago, there's an article in the atlantic.which revealed, he hasn't hit it or anything that he's a lifetime stutterer. and i think people ought to know this. because his somewhat strange way of talking, in many of his early political campaigns. he would misstate things. state things in a funny way. that's because he's avoiding this expression and doing another. the advantage i am claiming there is that people who stutter get very good at thinking of parallel words. not just elegant variations. called in the composition trade. but, it is seeing what the differences between words. and seeing if you can use - - when i was speaking to a friend in brazil a couple days ago. i was trying to teach her the difference in english between say and tell. i said, go to sleep. i'm telling you going to sleep. we discovered the word tell has an authority to it. she said very wisely, it's the mommy word. i'm telling you, go to bed now! i can't stand it anymore. whereas you don't say, i say go to bed. that kind of thinking goes on in the mind of a stutterer all the time. as i get older, i get, i start or less. i'm in a profession where i'm supposed to talk all the time. as a teacher. in fact, the month after i decided to change gender, for about two months. my stutter vanished. i didn't even notice it. other people said, - - they didn't know i was going to do this. i told my family and few others. they said ivan heard you stutter for two months. what's going on? i said, oh yeah. i guess it's because i've realized who i am. >> november 2 1995 on a bridge in cedar rapids. what happened? >> it wasn't quite in cedar rapids. it was a couple months earlier. if you're talking about the same thing. i call