Against Stupidity Even the Gods Battle in Vain

Robert Vienneau writes the authoritative blog, Thoughts on Economics
HERE

"Anti-Intellectualism Among Mainstream Economists"

I find these comments to be anti-intellectual:

John Quiggin rejects the Austrian school of economics on the ground that partisans of that school discuss political philosophy and the epistemology and methodology of economics.

Roberto Perotti critizes Post Keynesians and neo-Ricardians on the grounds that they don't spend their time exclusively constructing formal models and estimating correlations. (I used Google's translation feature. Sergio Cesaratto answers from a Sraffian perspective.)

Commentators at Mark Thoma reject discussions about what Adam Smith wrote.

I thought the point of scholarship was to attempt to make true statements. If somebody makes an untrue statement about what Keynes or Adam Smith said, one should correct them. This is not to say that that the fact that Keynes or Smith advocated something or other is a justification for policy. I think a historically accurate representation of an old text entails quite a bit of contextualization in terms of its time. To apply policy conclusions to our time would require recontextualization in contemporary terms, as well as empirical work.

I would think different scholars, even within a discipline, would find different questions of interest. Some economists argue for a supposed freedom to choose. Shouldn't some then be legitimately allowed to explore old texts or methodology or whatever? If Thomas Kuhn was somewhat correct, wouldn't one expect more discussion about methodology when the defining paradigm in a field has so obviously broken down, as today among mainstream economists?”

Comments
A timely reminder from Robert Vienneau of the duty of care of academics for the way they treat ideas of other people.

Along with the absolute right – of every person - to create, deduce, or induce – even invent – ideas, moral rights to not include the absolute or relative right of anybody to assert or ascribe to anyone else that they hold this or that set of ideas. That is a sign when embedded politically (and often associated with) a totalitarian state or of theological tyranny.

In my case above, quoted from Mark Thoma’s excellent Blog, many of the comments made about my article by his readers were certainly “anti-intellectual”, and where these were from graduates or well- informed, self-learners my reaction was one of incredulity at their displays of ignorance. Nothing to do with Mark Thoma, of course.

The World Began Before 1776

Joseph Martini writes in Give and Go (‘random musings on authentic happiness’) HERE:

"Economist Adam Smith didn’t contemplate conscious, rationalized idiocy on such a large scale; his “invisible hand” was no match for such a massive, wanton snow job."

I enjoy Tedd's blog and often agree with his observations and conclusions. However, in this case I respectfully disagree.

Actually, Adam Smith anticipated exactly what has happened in this particular boom/bust cycle.

He made it very clear that considerable structure was needed before the invisible hand of the market could work efficiently.

For example, property rights must be strong, and there must be widespread adherence to moral norms, such as prohibitions against theft and misrepresentation.

In his time, property rights were only recognized among the aristocracy.

Adam Smith developed his theories in a centralized, heavily planned and dictatorial society where some individuals were above the law and others were effectively without any rights.

He saw the system of his time as corrupt and inefficient--a massive and wanton snowjob that enriched the few at the expense of the many.

He even anticipated the influence of special interests, writing that:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices."

Comment
“He made it very clear that considerable structure was needed before the invisible hand of the market could work efficiently.”

No, he didn’t say anything remotely like that. He did not link his singular use of the metaphor of ‘an invisible hand’ to markets, efficient or otherwise. That’s a myth (see my downloadable paper on the Home page of Lost Legacy: 'Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: from metaphor to myth’.

“For example, property rights must be strong, and there must be widespread adherence to moral norms, such as prohibitions against theft and misrepresentation.”

Property rights were invented long, long before commercial markets appeared. Smith shows this in his Lectures on Jurisprudence (1762-3) (published by Liberty Fund in 1982).

The invention of property in the near east between 11,000 and 8,000 years ago was the trigger that set humans on economic development via shepherding and farming, neither of which was viable if flocks could wander and other humans could hunt them at will, and wild animals and other humans could access farmers’ crops for a free lunch.

With property, civil government became necessary to keep the poor (and rich neighbours!) from inflicting their depredations on what belonged to others. The evolution of laws about property over millennia enabled markets in time to grow.

“In his time, property rights were only recognized among the aristocracy.”

That is a gross exaggeration, Joseph Martini, and is probably from rhetoric you heard in junior school around the 4th of July celebrations. Adam Smith, for example, was not an aristocrat – he didn’t even have a vote in the restricted franchise of the time – but he owned property, and his rights were recognised in the Scottish courts.

When he inherited some of his father’s property, lawfully passed to his elder stepbrother, who died young, Adam secured his property rights through the Aberdeen and Fife civil courts. Britain in the 18th century was awash with laws recognising property rights well beyond the restricted aristocratic classes. Where do you think that the British colonies in America got their legal foundations from? (See Ian Ross, The Life of Adam Smith, 1995, Oxford University press).

“He even anticipated the influence of special interests, writing that:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices.”

The quotation is from Wealth Of Nations (WN I.x.c.27: p 145; Edwin Canaan, ed. 1937: p 18). It is not evidence of Adam Smith’s ‘anticipation’ of special interests at all! If Joseph Martini were to read the whole chapter he quotes from, he would see that Smith discusses the consequences of' (1563), which legally forbade anyone to enter a trade who had not served an apprenticeship (under the guise of ensuring ‘quality’, and other spurious 'spin'), but which became a monopolistic practice ruthlessly imposed by the ‘tradesmen’ to narrow the market and raise prices.

In short, instead of anticipating ‘special interests’, Adam Smith wrote about the then 200-year experience of them at work against the itnerests of both competition and consumers. And note, he was taking about shopkeepers, artisans, craftsmen and such like, who were legally organised into local Guilds.

If we are to understand Adam Smith it is first necessary to read his books. It is also, perhaps, necessary to be accurate about history - it began long before 1776, important as that date was for civil government.

Small Note of Smith and Malthus

Mir Mahfuz ur Rahman writes in The Daily Star Blog:

“Rice haves versus rice have-nots” (HERE)

ONE of the basic necessities of a commodity's availability is trade. Adam Smith, in his seminal work in 1776, had shown that comparative advantage of nations through trade was the key to increasing the economic wealth of all nations.

Rev. Thomas Malthus put forth the idea of a future world where a majority of the people starves due to lack of food. Given the circumstances of the world in the past two years, Rev. Malthus may be considered a sage even though he himself, as a man of God, may not have been happy about the reality of his prediction.”

Comment
Adam Smith’s trade theory was based on absolute advantage – a country trades what it is better at than others, for what goods they are better than it. Comparative Advantage was a theory advanced by David Ricardo in 1817.

Thomas Malthus described a ‘law of nature’ that had operated for thousands of years: the ‘Mathusian Trap’, namely that as subsistence rose, population would grow (more babies survive, life expectancies increase), but population would eventually run ahead of the necessary subsistence to support it, and subsistence would fall per capita, reducing population as infant morality increased and life spans shortened.

The irony was that just as Malthus was publishing his population theory, Britain was experiencing rising per capita consumption and rising population and the Malthusian Trap was not sprung because food output exceeded population growth in the industrialising commercial societies and has continued to do so for the past two hundred years. (See: Gregory Clark: A Farewell to Alms" (Princeton University Press, 2007)

Why Study the History of Economic Ideas?

Mike McBride, a guest blogger at orgtheory.net asks (18 July): “how important is it to know your discipline’s history?” HERE:

“If we base our answer on the material covered in the first year of core courses in economics graduate programs, then it is would seem to not be very important in my discipline. Yet, this is an unfair way to approach the question. The next question should really be: “Important for what?”

Let’s try a different route. It does not seem very important to know the grand history of your discipline to be a contributing member because your contributions are made at the research frontier. You only need to know the other relevant literature also at the frontier. (Or maybe the cynic would say it matters a little for establishing credibility with reviewers who want you to at give at least cursory mention to famous papers/books in your introduction.)

I remember learning this lesson as an undergraduate when I saw the list of references in one of my professor’s papers. I naively asked him how he could have neglected to cite Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. He chuckled and said that he’d never cited Smith in any of his papers. I was shocked. I wondered how it was possible to do economics without relating your work to Adam Smith.
Although I left this sweet innocence behind years ago, I often find myself revisiting my discipline’s history. Doing so gives me insightful perspective into how my own work fits into the overall discipline. It also aids in teaching because students love stories; if you can teach them a little history behind ideas and controversies, they are more excited about the material. But even better than these practical reasons is the thrill of encountering the evolution and synthesis of ideas. Living in the world of ideas is one of the best perks of our profession.
How important is it to you to know your discipline’s history? In what ways?”

Comment

I posted this short reply direct to Orgtheory:

‘The problem with citing Adam Smith in economics papers today is not that he had nothing to say of interest to today's researchers but what they do say about his work is almost always wrong; sometimes the citation does not correspond to the modern- day context even if the words used are similar (e.g., transposing Smith's analysis of the Royal Chartered Joint-Stock companies as if it applies to modern corporations) when the context is completely different.

There is also the misapplication of an isolated metaphor of 'an invisible hand' into a 'grand theory', a 'paradigm' even, when Smith used it simply as a metaphor on two occasions, once in Moral Sentiments and once only in Wealth Of Nations (his reference in his 'juvenile' 'History of Astronomy' referred to the real beliefs of pagan religions that Jupiter's hand cast thunderbolts at the enemies of Rome).

Smith did not refer to markets when using the metaphor in Book IV of WN (markets are exhaustively discussed in Book I and II without mentioning the metaphor). Those economists interested in following up this example amy contact me for a copy of my recent paper: 'Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: from metaphor to myth' (gavinATnegwebDOTcom).

The professor who 'never cited Adam Smith' most probably had never really read him because he didn't need to. Smith wrote about the real economy, almost as an inter-disciplinary treatment; professors today write about an imaginary economy absent human beings, almost entirely imaginary in abstract mathematics and not the real world. That is why there is hardly any agreement on economic management or policy among the profession. Governments and those who advise them hire economists who fit their politics, as they did in Smith's day.’

There is an active core of economists interested in the history of ideas in the discipline. In the North America, there is the History of Economics Society, which can be contacted at: http://historyofeconomics.org/contact.htm
Or direct to the Treasurer: tleonard@princeton.edu

HES holds an Annual meeting, this year’s was in York University, Toronto (last year’s was in GMU, Fairfax, Virginia). You can see my reports of both that I attended by scolling through Lost Legacy. It also publishes a scholarly journal, The History of Economic Thought.

There are active sister societies of HES in Europe and Australia. For lively debates and research that informs modern debates, these are excellent entry points for young scholars and those hardened professionals of vintage ages.

History of Economics Society Annual Meeting (York University, Toronto) 3

The first session I attended today was ‘Plato, Aristotle (and Marx?)’. It is becoming clear that a respectable number of contributors are interested in the philosophical links in the history of economic thought, including in Adam Smith’s work.

Anna Greco took Plato’s republic as the theme of ‘Economic Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency’ (largely about the different perspectives on the division of labour of Plato and modern economics) and Spenser Pack reported on Aristotle and his ‘difficult relationship with Modern theory’ from which I learned a lot about what I had previously known very little. He showed strong philosophical links between Aristotle and Smith. Robert Urquhart advanced a proposition of ‘Marx as a Left Aristotelian’ and made good case for his hypothesis. I found this session the most interesting and clearest intellectual survey. The discussion was equally good (those speaking occasionally dropped into conversation mode and I could not hear them well, or in some parts at all).

The plenary session on, ‘Why do Historians of Economics Hate Social Studies of Science?’ struck a chord with me. I have long been suspicious of disciplinary boundaries (in some cases, Iron Curtains), where excursions into or visitors from other disciplines might help economists conduct their studies better. I could not imagine Adam Smith’s work being so productive of insights if he had written solely within the strict boundaries of modern social science, or at least as it is practised in some areas by colleagues.

The major problem of this session was the familiar one that speakers from the floor tended to speak conversationally, though there were mikes present but they were not used. What is it with the coming generation of academics that they prefer to speak and not be heard than get up and go to a mike? Some members of the audience shouted advice to ‘speak up’ and were ignored (I didn’t do this at any meeting). ‘Twas a pity’, as was the failure of speakers to repeat or summarise the inaudible questions or comments in reply.

Next up after lunch – in my case a cup of coffee (decaf) and a Danish - was Maria Pia Paganelli whose paper was on ‘Approbation and the Desire to Better One’s Condition in Adam Smith’. This was presented well and her argument was solid. She took the usual assertion among modern economists of Adam Smith supposedly stating that in the search for approbation (praise), people’s self interests would have social benefits, and she showed that this conclusion was unsustainable in many cases, using a simple graphic.

I followed with my paper on Smith’s theory of bargaining, showing how his tentative view that the ‘propensity to truck, barter, and exchange’ appears to have been prevalent in pre-history, first as reciprocation, and that this evolved into bargaining, which Smith described as the conditional proposition (‘If you give me what I want, then I will give you this that you want’). My work in bargaining since 1972 completely concurs with the significance that Smith attached to the conditional proposition (largely mised by colleagues). This allows for an interpretation of the famous paragraph about the ‘butcher, the brewer, and the baker’ that is different from common interpretations among main stream economists, including, sadly, among some historians of economic thought.

In the next session, I chose to attend a fascinating discussion of ‘The Economics of Altruism’, which was presented by Steven Medema (‘Creating a Paradox: self-interest, civic duty, and the evolution of the theory of the rational voter’; Alain Marciona (‘Altruism and Rescue Law’) and Phillipe Fontaine (‘Beyond Altruism’). I have never been happy with the use made of word like ‘altruism’ in social sciences generally. It’s not that I have an alternative word for the phenomenon of altruism so much as it requires the observer to know what’s going on in the mind of the ‘altruist’, which is a feat beyond human capacity. However, the session was interesting, as were the questions. The speakers spoke up and the quietest, Phillipe Fontaine, was audible because I was sitting at the front.

Sandra Peart’s Presidential Address (‘We’re all “Persons” now: classical economists, on marriage, the franchise, and socialism’) was of the standard I have come to expect from her – you can see why she held the presidency of the society this past year. She also seems – from observation – to be popular across the board.

I missed the full-booked HES Banquet (I had a headache – quite a stressful day – but I gave my paid-for ticket to a delegate for his wife, and wondered if that was an example of altruism?).

The morning of the last day was devoted to ‘David Hume’s Political Economy’ and this session consisted of presentations by four of the authors of a new book of the title (Routledge, 2008, edited by Carl Wennerlind and Margaret Schabas). The papers were ‘The Historical Context of David Hume’s Political Economy’; ‘David Hume on Value, Manners and Morals’; David Hume’s Monetary Thought: theory and applications’; and ‘The reception of David Hume’s Political Economy in France.’ There was considerable unanimity among the authors and I shall order a copy as the book is now out – each presenter waved a copy with pride to prove it. (If there had been a flyer for it I would ordered one).

Smith and Hume were friends, as is well known – Hume kept a room for him to stay when he (rarely) visited Edinburgh (1766-73). Smith did not treat his friend well on at least two occasions: when Hume applied for a chair in Glasgow University – most assume it was for the Chair in Logic, but I believe it may have been for the Chair in Moral Philosophy in 1751, which Smith was gathering support for his own candidacy.

He wrote to a University colleague, William Cullen, his famous words: ‘I should prefer David Hume to any man for a colleague; but I am afraid the public would not be of that opinion; and the interest of the society will oblige us to have some regard to the opinion of the public’, which damned him with faint praise [Correspondence, No. 10, p 5-6, November 1751].

When asked by Hume to arrange for the publication of his essay on Natural Religion when it was clear he was dying in 1775-6, Smith 'refused' and Hume was disappointed in this treatment and his correspondence shows his disappointment with Smith, who feared repercussions from society. Hume wrote, ever the diplomat, ‘I think, however, your Scruples groundless’ (3 May), and later that day, in a different letter, he wrote: ‘After reflecting more maturely… I have become sensible … of your situation’ [Correspondence: Letters Nos. 156, pp 194-5 and 157, pp 195-6].

The last plenary session was a practical teaching session: ‘Advancing the History of Economics in and out of the classroom’. Kirsten K. Madden gave a spirited address illustrating her ‘Interpretive Question Cluster Discussion Technique in a History of Economic Thought Course’. I was impressed with her message and illustrations.

Years ago, Heriot-Watt economics department introduced the ‘TIPS’ programme to Scottish economists and I believe it achieved improvements in performance in both faculty and students. That it could (would?) economise on faculty resources was a major barrier to its adoption by the departments who tried it. Tenured faculty engage in restrictive labour practices as much as the most unionised plants. But that is an old wound and I won’t go there.

Bruce Caldwell finished the conference with an exciting report on the new Centre for the History of Political Economy in North Caroline (Duke). This could have an impact on the recruitment of faculty prepared to add ‘HOPE’ courses to their curricula in mainstream departments. We shared a cab to the airport during which he gave me more details of his intentions.
…

So that was HES 2008. On the whole a good conference. I met many new faces and heard some excellent treatments. HES 2009 is to be in Denver, Colorado. If I am able to attend I shall do so.

The 35th History of Economics Society Conference, Toronto, 2

From the interesting reminiscences of Geoff Harcourt (a veritable tour de force), I caught the tail end of the paper by Francis Peddle on ‘Hegel’s Concept of Poverty and Scottish Philosophy’. This was not the last reference to Hegel and Adam Smith’s (and Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart’s) influence on him. Hegel came up in several conversations during the rest of the day and, as I have little acquaintance with Hegel, it’s all new to me.

Duncan K. Foley took the plenary session. He spoke from, or rather read from, a two-sided pile of typed pages, sometimes at breakneck speed on ‘The History of Economic Thought in the Education of Duncan Foley’. What I caught seemed interesting; unfortunately, much was lost in a rushed mumble, which the sound system did not do much to help in the vast auditorium. By reading from a paper, necessarily looking down at it (Duncan is an American-tall man), he did not help his delivery. I shall await its publication and make a more informed judgement.

The next session that I attended was ‘18th-century Thought’ and this was a gold-dust session for me. Three excellent presentations; three interesting topics; and three stimulating speakers – they made my day.

Loic Charles reported on his work with Christine Théré in Quesnay’s archives and their discovery of the close collaboration of Mirabeau in the ‘produit net’, showing how Mirabeau convinced Quesnay to re-define its meaning. The archives of their handwritten exchanges show this clearly. Incidentally, the French pronunciation (Charles is French) of Quesnay is ‘Kenay’, silent ‘s’; I never knew that, though the discussants from the floor clearly did.

Jeffrey Young (St Lawrence University) ran through his paper on the post-war literature on Malthusian ideas (Limits to Growth, etc.,) and illustrated his case with clear diagrams showing the ‘ecological’ version of Malthus and how they must be re-drawn to correspond to both Malthus’ original ideas and to analysis of he actual constraints on growth. I have seen a similarly constructed diagram by Gavin Reid, showing Adam Smith’s ‘Four Ages of Man’ (Hunting, Shepherding, Agriculture, and Commerce).

Young concluded that the real constraint on growth is not the physical shortage of resources so much as institutional deficiencies (population behaviours; wrong-headed policies). Malthusian predictions have not materialised, and apart from local problems, human prospects are much better than is propagated by ‘limits-to-growth’ type literature.

Young called his approach in the paper as ‘thin history'; for something ostensibly ‘thin’, he was remarkably productive in making his case. David Levy, his discussant was excellent – he spoke to the listeners in the room, and not as is often the case, he did not engage in a barely audible conversation with the speaker a few feet from him; he spoke to the seminar.

In a spirited contribution, Levy, spoke of his case that there are two separate claims to the ideas of Malthus: one is straight Malthusian set of ideas based on what he wrote; the other is a ‘Malthus’ invented by modern literature. I felt the same can be said of Adam Smith.

Benjamin Mitra Kahn (City University) spoke to 'Defining Economic Growth in the 18th century'. His exposition was excellent; his content well arranged, and his purpose fulfilled in showing how ideas about national income accounting slowly emerged as nation states wrestled with what seems to be a problem of classification of stocks and flows, but which was in fact a highly practical search for a clear method of selecting flows for taxation to finance wars.

I commented, briefly, that Adam Smith's distinction between 'productive' and 'unproductive labour' had nothing to do with national accounting, though incorrectly ascribed as that later. These had much to do with Smith's dynamics of growth: what added to growth (circulating capital) and which didn't (prodigality in consumption). It wasn't a divide into manufacturing and services, as is commonly claimed; providers of services for unproductive consumption, were profit-seeking suppliers who did replace their outlays plus a profit, some of which was re-invested in replacing labour and materoal costs and therefore were productive.

I attended part of the session ‘Money in Hume, Law and Cantillon’, in which James Ahiakpor spoke on the ‘Search for a Consistent Interpretation’ of ‘Hume on money’. Again, it is a case of being ‘interpreted’ by
20th-century theorists (Fisher, Taussig, Viner, et al) rather than his (Humes')contributions, ‘Of Money’, ‘Of Interest’ and ‘Of the Balance of Trade’, taken together. Ahiakpor made a competent case, supported by on-screen paragraphs from the different sources.

Here I took a break, and conversed in the coffee room with some participants, and bought a couple of books. The ‘In Memorium’ plenary session for ‘Bob’ Coats was well attended and had a video link to Warren Samuels, whom I had hoped to speak to about his 2007 paper on the modern treatment of the invisible hand. Clearly, he was convalescing and not in attendance. The speeches about Bob Coats (of whom I knew little, other than couple of his pieces I have read on 19th-century social conditions) were moving tributes to the man, his wife and partner, Sonia, and their work.

Lastly, I went to the reception for the outgoing editor of the excellent Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Steven Medema. After ten years, he hands over to the next editor. He has also organised the speakers for the Edinburgh Conference of HET in September, at which I am presenting a paper.

Small change: I was proposing to speak on ‘Adam Smith and the Labour Theory of Value’, basically showing he has been wrongly (dis)credited with a LTV. Instead, I have been asked to give my latest version of my paper, ‘Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand: from metaphor to myth’ and I am very pleased to do so. I shall present the LTV paper (now in final draft) next year at an early opportunity.

The ‘invisible hand’ is a more pressing issue than LTV among the profession and given the critical audience of the HET conference – small numbers, longer sessions, more discussion and more time for critical appraisal, I am pleased, apprehensive, but not complacent, at the challenge of a critical test before my peers for a theme I have been explicating and defending since 2005 on Lost Legacy.

The final paper goes into the conference secretariat next week. It is a clear case of presenting the original ‘S’ rather than the modern “S” (acknowledgements to David Levy).

... Sunday dawns, and I am ready for delivering my paper: ‘Adam Smith on Bargaining’ after lunch, and after a morning session on ‘Plato, Aristotle (and Marx?)’, plus a panel discussion on ‘historians and the history of social science’.

History of Economics Society 35th Annual Meeting 1

Toronto, Canada. I've been here couple of times, changing planes, but this is my first visit to the city on the ground. I have been here in imagination though. My grandfather was in Toronto from the coal fields of Killwinning in Ayr, Scotland from 1910 to the first world war when he returned home. He told me he came home to join the army but they sent him back down the pits to dig coal. Just as well, otherwise my mother would not have been born in 1916, nor me in 1940.

Riding around in taxis, I wodnered how much had changed. From the look of the buildings, the main roads, bridges and railways, it must have changed a great deal. My grandparents would never have recognised anything. They had met and married in Toronto, she from Moray, 'in service' to a Lord and family and he, a cobalt miner from somewhere in Canada.

York University, the conference venue, is large by Scottish, though not by Shanghai standards. Is also new, modern and neat. We're in the 'Schulich Scool of Business' building.

This afternoon (Friday) it was registration, an impressively efficient affair. I wandered off for a coffee with Geoff Harcourt (Cambridge) whom I have not met before but knew him from his role in the 'capital controversy' of the 60' and 70's (I still have a copy of his book). This was a debate between neoclassical economists in Cambridge, Mass. and Cambridge, England. He is a most interesting conversationalist, typical of what I missed from not going to Cambridge. We knew various people in common, but he knew many more, mostly 'big names' in the discipline, and his accounts of them and their work fascinated me. Geoff is a intellectual biorapher, particularly of the Joan Robinson, whom I met once when she was awarded a Honorary Degree at Brunel University, where I was a junior lecturer in the Economics Dept headed by John Vaizey. I also read her book, Imperfect Competition, which struck me as brilliant, and also because of a small point: it was the first economics text that I had read that had diagrams that included red lines as well as standard black. By the 1970s multi-coloured illustrations were fairly common and no longer limited to plain text and often impenetratable graphs. She was always readable.

At the evening supper I slipped away early, preferring to stick close to UK time zone habits as my stay here is short and it's a busy week to come with the unveiling arrangements of Adam Smith's statue in Edinburgh on 4 July.