Tyler Cowen: commitment

Transcript context

…I will tell you a story, very brief one. Don’t be afraid, no time. That’s what I like, and even I hope you will like this. My favorite passage in Marx is — maybe you know it — 1870 Paris Commune, there was a dream that maybe there will be European revolution. And Marx wrote a letter to Engels — I love him for that — where he says, “Oh, my God, they want a revolution now, but I haven’t yet finished The Capital. Not now, I have to finish my book.” That’s the true spirit that I — [laughter] Exactly, and that’s why I trust you. Now, we have a method for questions. There will be questions from the floor and questions from Twitter. Your questions from the floor are to be questions, not statements, not proclamations, not political platforms. We are here to hear this man, so I will cut you off if it is not a proper question. But, before we get to that, we have four questions on video, at least one of which is too long. I’m told they’re friends, your friends, but you need more enemies, perhaps. Absolutely, I’m still here.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.