----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
Pat, 
 
I'm a bit late getting started today, and at random I started with your posting. 
 
I would agree with you that for the most part, it is very difficult to enter the "club of
economists" if you don't accept the reality of the utility conception of motivation.
I manage to slip by the gate keepers.  Why would I raise any question about the issue?
Well, there is a distinguished linage of folks who have raised questions about this.  Joan
Robinson for one,  Keynes for another, and then there is Veblen.  According to L. Robbins
only the ignorant and the perverse entertain any such doubts, but I don't see that one
needs to be ignorant to have doubts.  Perverse, well maybe.
 
The standard version of choice theory has been the marginal utility fable. But, the fable
generates some persistent anomalies-- the Giffen paradox for example. I've developed an
alternative choice model using control theory that explains the Giffen paradox, and a
number of other anomalies.  (The compensated demand function, contrary to common belief
doesn't solve the Giffen issue.)   And, under most circumstances a control theory price
theoretic model generates results that are very similar to, but not precisely,  those of
orthodox price theory.  That is, _most_ demand functions slope downward.
 
Control theory has in the last decade or so become one of the theoretical foundations of
biology.  So, if we give any credit to Marx, Marshall and Veblen who suggested that the
future of economics would be connected to developments in biology, it would be natural to
suspect that control theory might have fundamental implications for theoretical economics.
 
The usual test for a new conception is first does it explain an interesting anomaly, and
then does it provide an explanation for the "normal cases" which are thought to be
adequately explained by the existing theory. Control theory appears to do so.
 
Bill Williams 
 
 
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