Steve Medema's post seems to me to be right on target.  One _can_ be  
positive about normative issues, in fact and economics that doesn't  
talk about coercion would be lacking since coercion clearly is a part  
of economic life.  Precisely how it is introduced into the system is  
a matter of debate and definitions -- but one cannot rule it out of  
court.  Neither do suggestions of cultural difference or ideological  
warfare aid us in the _intellectual_ task. 
 
Coercion can be defined relative to the existing legal structure, or  
it can be defined on the basis of some _articulated_ moral theory. 
 
The use of the term intervention is also not per se "bad".  By  
definition, government is "intervening" in the pattern of exchanges  
that would have emerged had there been no intervention -- otherwise  
government would be redundant.  The state's involvement in the  
economy is necessarily _non-neutral_.  Whether this non-neutrality is  
a for good or bad is a subject of  inquiry, not assumption. 
 
Government may well be disturbing the pattern of exchange and  
production for the "good" or the "bad" -- economic science can aid in  
adjudicating that issue.  Certainly I have my own biases in how such  
an investigation should be conducted and I even have some rather  
strong priors about how such an investigation will turn out, but that  
doesn't mean I cannot be persuaded otherwise. 
 
I have a paper coming out in the next number of Journal of History of  
Economic Thought which attempts to deal with the issues of  
value-freedom in the wake of post-positivism which may have a thing  
or two of relevance for this discussion.  Also see the paper by  
Hausman and McPherson on Taking Ethics Seriously in the Journal of  
Economic Literature.  Economists have to be concerned with normative  
issues (embodied in such terms as coercion, voluntary exchange,  
etc.). 
Jack High wrote an interesting paper several years ago on the issue  
a few years ago in an article: Is Economics Independent of Ethics?  
... I am sure he would be willing to provide anyone with an off-print  
if they wrote to him (he can be reached at: The Program on Social and  
Organizational Learning, George Mason University, 4084 University  
Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030).   High's basic conclusion is that our  
language is embedded in ethical value systems and that we need to be  
conscious of ethical arguments that are implied in the use of terms,  
such as market exchange in order to understand what it means.