Abstract
Don Quixote worshipped his Dulcinea. Jay Gatsby attempted to escape his past to claim his Daisy Buchanan. For George Stigler, Chicago Price Theory played a highly similar role. Like Gatsby or Quixote, Stigler attempted to transform himself from the gauche provincial boy into a transformative figure in economics. Like the fictional characters, he was driven by an almost romantic idealism.
Dulcinea del Toboso is the necessary high born beauty to whom Don Quixote dedicates all his adventures and quests. She is as much an unarguable requirement of his imagined knighthood as is his squire, Sancho Panza, or his steed, Roccinante. For the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, some things simply needed to be believed. The actual truth of the matter is of lesser importance.
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References
Cervantes, Miguel (1993) Don Quixote. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.
Demsetz, Harold (1993) “George J. Stigler: Midcentury Neoclassicalist with a Passion to Quantify”, The Journal of Political Economy. 101(5): 793–808.
Stigler, George (1949) “The Economists and Equality”, In Five Lectures on Economic Problems. London: Longmans, Green, pp. 1–11.
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Freedman, C. (2020). The Dulcinea Complex: Defending the Unobtainable. In: Freedman, C. (eds) George Stigler. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56815-1_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56815-1_18
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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