Ali’s Exceptional Essay

The last, though far from the least, of the essays in the Critical Review‘s special issue on my book is now on-line.
It’s by the distinguished M. Ali Khan, a long-time Johns Hopkins mathematical economist.
The “honored and humbled” usually makes me flinch. But this nonce, I am genuinely:
1. Honored that someone of Ali’s caliber would put in so much effort to write such a deep and wide-ranging essay. Practically a monograph. Honored as well by the essays of the other equally distinguished contributors to the special issue — and thankful to the editor for organizing it. As an aside, I am a multi-decade admirer of Critical Review and its late editor Jeff Friedman. Both inspired me in my own effort to start and nurture Capitalism and Society (now shut down in an unspeakable act of intellectual vandalism…)
2. Humbled too. I have no illusions about my paltry standing in the academic world — but feel no reason to feel diminished by that either. Ali’s essay humbles me however for how short I fall by comparison in what I know and can grasp. Makes me feel like an imposter in the world of true scholarship.
Ali is a mathematical economist of the highest class. I could not begin to understand his papers or his contribution. Yet he has no difficulty in reading or writing about my work, which is squarely in the humanist tradition. Very likely he is even better read in it than I am. Similarly, last week a very serious geneticist said he had read my book — and liked what it said. I don’t think I’d grasp his contributions to his field. (He’s a hot candidate for a Nobel…)
But from each according to his capacity as Marx didn’t actually say.