Nicholas J. Theocarakis wrote:
>Even extreme reductionists and staunch believers 
>in microfoundations resort to
>macro analysis, let alone the rest of us.


Let me pose a question which is prior to the 
question  of when the term is introduced, but 
gets to why it was introduced. Is it possible 
that the shift in thinking from "political 
economy" to the "science" of economics 
necessitates some term very like 
"macro-economics"? Some may protest the use of 
quotes around the term science, but I mean 
something very specific. "Political economy" 
connotes that idea that an economy is always 
embedded with political and social institutions. 
"Science," or at least some interpretations of 
the term, imply that economics posits truths 
which hold regardless of time, place, culture, 
and institutions. Once economics became 
"scientific" in this sense, did we not then need 
some way to re-inject the political order back 
into economic analysis, and does not 
macro-economics serve as cover to do this? Is it 
possible that the term is introduced by lots of 
different economists around the same time because it serves the same need?



>MARIONETTA
>
>I will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not conversant with
>metaphysical subtleties, but--
>
>MR FLOSKY
>
>Subtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll.  I am sorry to find you participating in
>the vulgar error of the reading public, to whom an unusual collocation of
>words, involving a juxtaposition of antiperistatical ideas, immediately
>suggests the notion of hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.


That's a keeper!


John C. Medaille