A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog  
  
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old  
  
Where armies whole have sunk  
  
This quote of Milton preceded the chapter on non-convexities in Arrow &  
Hahn's General Competitive Analysis (1971) the standard graduate text used  
in the seventies.  [Hahn & Hart taught from it in Cambridge in the late  
70s].  Then A&H proceded in showing how limited non-convexities can be  
accomodated in a GE framework.  Relaxing of other assumptions of the A-D  
model ensued.  Hahn once remarked that "we proceded with a pace of a theorem  
a day".  The testing of the robustness of the A-D edifice has indeed been  
tested [The section [17E] of Mas-Colell et al. 1995 on the  
Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu theorem is entitled "anything goes"].  The Great  
Temple has been replaced by a beehive of family shrines.  There is no doubt  
that neoclassical theory [it is called economic theory these days, methinks]  
has a very active research programme.  And yes, constraints are not always  
exogenous.  Indeed, the very essence of the agent-principal model is the way  
the principal sets the agent's contraints.  Even in the original Walrasian  
model the constraints of the initial endowments, are transformed through the  
preferences of the individuals and the market mechanism [crieur,  
tatonnement, hic est corpus]  to prices that form the budget constraint for  
each consumer/trader.  And the model does have a certain undeniable  
mathematical allure."Justice is a cube, said the old sage" [FYE].  
The problem is not the use of mathematics, or that of mathematical  
formalisation.   The problem is rather, that this is considered to be the  
sole acceptable method of addressing problems.  In a sense, from a rigorous  
methodological standpoint microeconomics should be the only acceptable type  
of economics. [representative agent, warts and all]. Relevance has to be  
sacrificed in order to achieve mathematical tractability. It is one thing to  
have a frictionless model in physics, and another thing to have a  
frictionless model of walking, John Cleese notwithstanding.  It is like  
looking for your keys where the light is and not where you lost them.  If  
there is light there, so much the better.  
  
The off-the-mark remark about the closet hetero Italo-Cantabrigians secretly  
yearning for a revival of the old Capital controversies will keep me amused  
for the next week during which I intend to re-read Norman Cohn's  
exhilarating _In pursuit of the millennium_ in my summer vacation.  
Have a nice summer.  
  
Nicholas J. Theocarakis