Pat Gunning writes to John Medaille:  
"If so, we   
can begin with a discussion of what economics is about, as Mises   
conceives it and as it was understood (if only partly so) by the older   
economists -- e.g., classical economists like Adam Smith. Roughly, but   
not exactly, speaking, I have in mind such things as self interest, the   
invisible hand, specialization, competition, and social utility.  
  
I maintain that the subject matter of economics so conceived is economic   
interaction -- how people act under the conditions of a market economy --   
private property rights, free enterprise, and the use of money. (It is   
also about how people act when these conditions are only partly present   
and when some sort of government policy alters the conditions that would   
otherwise be present. But the study of economic interaction under these   
conditions comes later. The starting point is the study of economic   
interaction, as defined.) So the first point we must establish is   
whether you agree that the study of this subject is worthwhile.  
  
If we can agree on this, we can go on to deal with the issue of the   
meaning of action and of how to build an epistemological basis of   
studying it."  
  
  
        That seems to say, "Concede my major point before we begin, and  
abandon your positions, then we can talk."  (My paraphrasing.)  
  
        Below are some lists of matters that Veblen and other  
institutionalists have found to be important, other than "self interest, the  
invisible hand, specialization, competition, and social utility".  
  
        Veblen showed how much of our consumer "needs" are just "competitive  
emulation," and "conspicuous consumption" - self-validating efforts to keep  
up with the Jones's in an endless, fruitless spiral of waste.  
  
        Veblen stressed that mankind is social, custom-bound, and less than  
rational, not like the robotic and calculating "pleasure-maximizing  
machines" of Edgeworth.  Veblen discussed things like:   
  
tradition,   
ceremony,   
symbolism,   
hypocrisy,   
advertising,   
cosmetics,   
customs,   
emulation,   
team spirit,   
the family,   
the clan,   
the military band (fighting, not musical)   
social standing,   
folkways and mores,   
fads and fashions,   
group values,   
image,   
"vicarious leisure,"   
cults,   
credulity,   
frauds,   
ethnic loyalties,   
personal ornamentation   
  
- the stuff of real life.  He did this from the perspective of an academic  
insider, who knew perfectly well what socially correct authorities like  
Clark, Edgeworth, Pareto, and Marshall were trying to say.  They could not  
blow him off as someone who just didn't get it.  He got it, all right, but  
he didn't buy it.  There's a world of difference.  
  
Another economist to take that view was to be Keynes, who stressed the  
"animal spirits" of investors as a cause of boom or bust.   
  
Veblen disagreed with the neo-classical assumption that each individual is  
independent, autonomous, and endogenously motivated.  He saw mankind  
organized into "institutions," like the following:  
  
family,   
village,   
church,   
nation,   
bar,   
party,   
hunt club,   
country club,   
lodge,   
corporation,   
union,   
police force,   
bureau,   
branch of military service,   
college, class, and alumni,   
estate,   
trust,   
sporting teams and fans,  
club,   
coop,   
cartel,   
professional association,   
etc.,   
  
each with its own internal logic, loyalties, values and structure.    
  
  
        On top of all those lesser loyalties is the international comity of  
property, which dominates our academies, churches, think-tanks, courts,  
legislatures, administrators, armed forces, vocabularies, and minds.  
  
Mason Gaffney