"Such uninformed essentialist proclamations", be they   
what they are, do have a bearing on the history of  Economics.  
  
        The kind of  "theorizing in the abstract" to which Medaille   
refers is not the kind of theory with which the practice of   
Economics begins.  
  
        Practice in Economics begins with a complex situation   
that is troublesome.  It tries to abstract the elements that bear on   
the trouble in an attempt to find a way to eliminate them.  
  
        It is only as an after thought that the entailed abstraction is   
elevated to universal and eternal validity.  This process of   
transmogrification from the here and now to the everywhere and   
forever may be warranted, but I conjecture that usually it is not.  
  
        This is a recurring development in the  history of   
Economics.  
  
Robin Neill