>      This is honestly the way I was taught economics!  Material 
> goods are just PART of the stew. 
>      That's a very different kind of economics than one confined to 
> material goods or to only those actions taking place through a  
> market, isn't it? 
>      So what do I call the ONE, and what do I call the OTHER? 
>      -- Mary Schweitzer 
>  
Mary: 
 
Lionel Robbins takes this on squarely in his ESSAY ON THE NATURE AND  
SIGNIFICANCE OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE (1932), contrasting the "old" material  
welfare definitions with the means-ends-choice definition that he was  
offering.  He also gets into a lengthy discussion about  
self-interest-seeking and its relation to all of this.  He minimizes the  
"crude" behavioral aspect, saying that this is not necessary to the  
means-ends-choice paradigm.  While this would provide you with ammo  
against your fellow historians, the uses to which many economists do in  
fact put rationality, etc. seem to belie this claim somewhat, at least in  
the present. 
 
Steve Medema