The Last Word suggests a rhetoric of bringing the conversation to a conclusion. A Conclusion for all time, the sort favored by modernism, would be too ambitious. After all, apart from the trickle of anticipations by Veblen, Machlup (Machlup 1967; and see Langlois 1985, p. 232), Robert Clower (1972 [1988]), Albert Hirschman (1970, 1981, 1984, 1991), Mark Perlman (1978), Shackle (1983, p. 116) and a few others, economists have only thought about words like rhetoric, humanism, conversation, and the social structure of scientific discourse for a few years. We are just beginning an economic criticism, as in “literary criticism,” giving new readings of economics and maybe of the economy, too. A handful of people have tried to write economic criticism; many more are thinking about it, drafting and corresponding and reading. But the arbitrage between economics and the rest of the culture has only just begun. So wait and see. At present it would be premature for advocates of the rhetorical approach to erect Conclusions for all time.

Likewise, it would be premature for those who now consider themselves its opponents — we live in hope they will realize soon that they are its natural allies — to throttle the infant in its cradle.