??  Professor Hay, which is not a forum for what debate?  Do you 
mean HES should not be a forum for a debate on whether Canadians  
need care what people in the United States call economics, or 
do you mean HES should not be a forum for a query on the use of 
the term "coercion" in particular ways by economists? 
     Do you mean that we can't talk about a strain of economics 
unless it's old?  How old?             
     Do you mean that there is no special economic meaning to the 
term "coercion"?  I don't think so.   
     If no one wants to discuss this, that's fine.  But it is hardly 
off-topic. 
     As I mentioned several months ago, I see a tendency to resurrect 
certain beliefs about morality, motivation, and politics that were 
commonly held by classical economists, without admitting the origins 
of the theories.  I also see a trend to take a word used in the 
vernacular to mean one thing, give it a "special" meaning for economists, 
and then bounce back and forth at will from the vernacular to the 
special.  And I see this with the way the term "coercion" is being 
used. 
     I could be wrong.  But at least I wanted to get a handle on the 
range of definitions in the current econ literature or discourse, and 
where particular usages and definitions are coming from - that is, 
where is the chain of scholarly literature, that "everyone" -- or 
everyone else -- has read, that sets up these definitions?   
     It would seem to me that change over time in this manner would 
definitely be an appropriate topic.  If it is not, the discussion will 
come to a halt (as it was, until your most recent posting). 
     -- Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University