Fred Carstensen wrote in part:  
Clearly, for instance, one element of choice is the institutional   
framework (whether cultural or legal) that a society chooses to   
impose upon itself (or has imposed upon it); that frames choice.  You   
ignore it (as most economists in fact do) at your peril.  
  
This is a much richer way, I think, of understanding the insights   
that economics offers than the very narrow focus on satisfying   
material wants, which is where most introductory texts begin   
(unfortunately).  
  
  
I think 'economics as choice' excludes social phenomena by the limits it  
forces on theory. The development of neoclassical economics is itself a  
good empirical example. To use the tool efficiently, economists have  
narrowed their field of vision and ended up with market exchanges,  
studied rigorously with mathematical analyses. Also, are institutional  
frameworks 'chosen' or do they evolve over long periods of time with  
small, big and messy actions of many, many individuals? But of course I  
agree that they should not be are ignored.  
  
Economists can legitimately focus on material needs, because sciences  
need boundaries, but that should not preclude them from situating the  
material needs within a social context. The fact that consumers have  
real choice, but workers don't, is something that choice theory cannot  
deal with, unless the power variable is part of the equation. Women's  
work is very much a matter of material conditions, but it is not totally  
explicable unless culture and patriarchy are brought in the picture.  
IMHO the poverty and sterility of economics would come from its  
practice, not its subject matter of material wants.  
  
Sumitra Shah