Response t o P rof.  Mary Morgan 
 
>       As a European, I have read with interest but increasing 
>          confusion this debate over coercion.  I have never heard an 
>         economist in an economic history or economics seminar say 
          "economic theory teaches us that all government is 
          coercion".  And, although the "free market always provides a 
          better solution" is prominent to any one who has lived 
          through the Thatcher years in Britain, it perhaps remains 
          more of a political slogan than an economic theory.  In any 
          case, the two statements do not necessarily connect.  I am 
          pleased to have been educated about the possibly 
          European roots of the former idea, but wonder whether the 
 >         way the idea is expressed (above, taken from Mary 
 >        Schwietzer's message) denotes a particularly American view 
 >        about government stemming from political traditions? 
 >         Mary Morgan (London and Amsterdam) 
 
 
I do not understand what is meant by an "American view" in Mary Morgan's  
thoughtful response.  When the earliest ideas about liberty and coercion  
informed discussions about the fledgling United States, etc., there was so  
much cross-fertilization on both sides of the Atlantic that it is frankly  
confusing to speak of an "American view."    
 
Perhaps the questioning of authority and the reliance on reason and (some  
respect for custom and tradition) is better related to the Reformation and  
the Northern European response to the "magician Priests" and the  
centralization of regligious information.  This tradition may have had  
something to do with Locke and Hobbes, etc., and came to America by way of  
the Common Law and subsequent discussions.  Even then it is not an  
"American view" but a "Northern European/American view" that may have been  
exported to Hong Kong and parts of India by Margaret Thatcher's  
predecessors. 
 
These are gut responses and not clearly thought out but the natural  
inevitable result of Mary Morgan suggestion that we seriously distinguish  
and American view from a European view on matters of basic liberty and  
coercion.   
 
L. Moss