ABSTRACT
The original interview/conversation, since added to and edited, took place on November 22, 2002 at Deirdre McCloskey’s magnificent apartment in Chicago. In sending me directions to her home Deirdre included the following instructions: “You come out on Congress Expressway, and walk away from the brown building over the street called The Chicago Stock Exchange. Think ‘Fleeing from Capitalism’!” Deirdre, of course, would rather have me slouching toward this icon of rampant accumulation and speculation, though not as a way to find her home. Ruminating later on Deirdre’s instructions alongside her views about what she regards as the mostly irresponsible bolt of artists since the 19th century away from capitalism and their own bourgeois roots, it occurred to me that she had, indeed, not only given me righteous directions, but also an affable affirmation and gentle acknowledgment of my own lifelong line of flight. Not to mention a title for this piece. JA
JA: I’ve heard you quite vehemently criticize artists and others who “bite the hand that feeds them.” Could you say more about this, especially your concerns about the criticism of capitalism put forward in much 20th-century art and culture?
