Michael Perelman wrote  
Why would the study of economics ignore the constraints and the   
production of constraints?  
  
But surely it doesn't and never has. All choice, always, is subject to   
constraints. In (modern) mainstream economics all of the action is in the   
constraints - if the price of something changes, we respond by substituting   
(or not, as the case may be) because the price change has changed the slope   
and position of the budget constraint. And so on.  
  
I find the whole discussion rather odd. As historians of economics (this is   
the HES list, after all) shouldn't we be thinking about the different ways   
people have (explicitly or implicitly) defined the subject, the methods of   
analysis they have used, and so on, rather than searching for some sort of   
Platonic ideal which is the true definition of economics?  
  
Tony Brewer