Antony wonders why we are quarrelling about individualism.  Didn't it   
come out of the questions about the Becker piece, which some of us   
saw as attributing different qualities to male (head of households)   
than to female individuals, and as positing divisions of labor based   
on good economic principles of comparative advantage (even if the   
social structure means that the likely-to-be-domestic female then   
gets screwed in cases of divorce because she ends up with no saleable   
skills, no job, and the kids).  In that context, it does need a   
defence.  (I think in general economic individualism needs a defence   
whenever it does not take power differentials into account, which   
could be part of the second point in terms of the family, and which   
surfaces in many other places, at least for some of us.)  
  
I do not want to re-run all the arguments, merely to restore the   
history, which began with rationality and indivdualism in economic   
thought.  
  
Peter G. Stillman