I find this discussion about economics and particularly microeconomics  
being a theory of choice quite strange.  It seems to be a very narrow  
conversation in which most discussants have no idea that economics can  
be defined in totally different terms--that is economics is a contested  
discipline.  By ignoring non-choice approaches to economics, most of the  
discussants are implicitly saying that economists such as Post  
Keynesians, Sraffians, Institutionalists, Marxists, social economists,  
feminist economists, and a host of other heterodox economists are not  
really economists but may be, to use William Coleman's phrase,  
anti-economists and engaged in anti-economics; and perhaps they should  
be excluded from the hes listserve and excluded from the profession.  If  
this is indeed the sentiment of the majority of the discussants on the  
hes listserve, perhaps the moderator should reserve it to only those  
economists who define economics as only a theory of choice.  
  
As a side note, I argue that economics is the theory of the social  
provisioning process and that the heterodox theory of it is not grounded  
in mainstream choice theory of any sort.  And, moreover, I teach and do  
research in heterodox microeconomics in which economics as a theory of  
choice is totally rejected as well all other aspects of mainstream  
microeconomic theory.  While it may be a 'wrong' approach, it is  
certainly an alternative approach to microeconomics as a theory of  
choice.    
  
Fred Lee