Regarding the idea of government intervention and coercion as terms that 
economists should avoid, I think that the issue is really one of method and 
not ideology, as many imply.  The economic method, which developed around 
the end of the 19th century, limited economics.  Economists henceforth (at 
least those who bought into neoclassical economics) had to begin their 
studies with the pure 
market economy.  We begin by conceiving of an image of an economy in which 
property rights are fully defined and there are no goods with those 
embarrassing public goods characteristics.  After we study the way in which 
real people would act under these unreal circumstances, we are prepared to 
deal with the more complex cases of less than fully defined property rights 
and public goods.  I don't know any other way to distinguish economics from 
history than to follow this neoclassical method. 
    The problem arises when scholars forget that the image of the pure market 
economy is a tool to help us understand the effects of using force for some 
other reason than the enforcement of property rights.  When they go on to 
argue, without first fully working through the logic of the economic method, 
that the use of force is justified or unjustified, they make an error in 
method.  Of course, many "professional economists" see no use for the 
economic method, as described here.  Many others seem to have never learned 
neoclassical economics, as described here. 
 
Pat Gunning 
National Chung Hsing University 
Taiwan