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I find this discussion fascinating but have not had the time to 
respond in full to the several topics being discussed.  However, 
this one sentence caught my eye: 
 
Patrick Gunning wrote: 
 
>The fundamental idea is that of how normal human beings 
>interact under the conditions of the market economy. 
 
Is it? 
 
If we are talking history of economic thought, I presume we mean 
the history of thought about economics, which brings us inevitably 
to a definition of economics. 
 
This was not the definition of economics, as a subject, that was 
taught to me in school.  Rather, I learned that economics is 
"the study of the production and distribution of goods and 
services".  No "market" necessary there. 
 
One might add "in the face of scarcity".  No market there, either. 
 
There IS a definition of economics as a topic that restricted it 
to the study of market activity because MARKET ACTIVITY IS 
OBSERVABLE.  It is one of Marshall's main points in his Principles. 
It is one of Samuelson's main points in the original 1948 copyright 
text.  We can observe prices and quantities, and therefore we can 
make rational statements about them.  But that's sort of a cart-before 
-the-horse definition of a topic, isn't it?  We restrict it to what 
is easy to study?  Certainly it's a very serious restriction for the 
subdiscipline of what people have THOUGHT about economics. 
 
I doubt Samuelson would define economics that way today. 
 
On a more formal level, most economic analysis with which I am familiar 
is of the nature of constrained maximization -- that is, 
maximizing a set of goals subject to a set of constraints. 
 
Nothing necessary there about markets either. 
 
I emphasize this for three reasons: 
 
1.  If you are embroiled in a scholarly debate over the "rise of 
markets" and the effects of "markets" on society in general, then 
defining economics as the study of markets leaves one without much 
in the way of tools for debating issues involving ... the production 
and distribution of goods and services outside of markets.  Or 
the satisfaction of wants in the face of scarcity.  Or maximization 
of goals subject to a set of constraints. 
      Or -- most important -- TRANSITIONS to whatever a "market 
economy" really is. 
      In my field of history, the belief that economics is the study 
of markets has created a field day for those who want to discuss 
cash, "exchange", production/consumption/distribution, government 
policy, institutions, etc. etc. -- without having to deal with any 
of the massive literature in the field of economics on any of these 
subjects. 
      All one has to do is declare the period "pre" market or 
"not in the" market, and academic economic analysis is off-topic. 
A pretty pathetic state of affairs. 
 
2.  Much of the canon of the subdiscipline of "history of economic 
thought" was written when a great deal of production and consumption 
occurred OUTSIDE OF THE MARKET.  It is critical to an understanding 
of what the WORDS meant, what the THEORIES meant, and what the words 
and theories that have followed have meant. 
     Something so simple as: 
     What DOES "consumption" mean?  Why would we care? 
 
3.  A great deal of what goes on in economic analysis today has to 
do with activities that are outside the market.  Activities inside 
giant economic institutions.  Household production.  Etc.  Now, of 
course, these can be redefined as "implicit markets" -- but something 
is lost in the process.  IF we want to define these activities as 
"implicit markets", then we MUST redefine our prior definition of 
what a market IS.  And then one is left with the conundrum that caused 
Marshall, and the early Samuelson, to want to restrict economics to 
OBSERVABLE market transactions -- because the institutional constraints 
of the quantity/price observable cash markets are quite different from 
the institutional constraints of "implicit" markets. 
     And the type of analysis used is quite different as well. 
     So from a standpoint of history of economic THOUGHT, it tells us 
nothing about changes in paradigms or research programs or worldviews 
to use a language implying nothing really changed in the transition 
from studying only OBSERVABLE markets as "economics", to studying 
"implicit" markets as "economics".  The important information is lost 
by using the same word "market" to mean quite different things. 
 
Now, by just jumping in here without having sat and studied the other 
posts, I hope I haven't egregiously misread the posting to which I am 
replying. 
 
But I do think it is IMPERATIVE -- if one is to discuss the history of 
economic thought, one must first get the DEFINITION of economics 
nailed down. 
 
Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University 
(on leave 1995-97) <[log in to unmask]> 
 
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