Fred Carstensen wrote in part: Clearly, for instance, one element of choice is the institutional framework (whether cultural or legal) that a society chooses to impose upon itself (or has imposed upon it); that frames choice. You ignore it (as most economists in fact do) at your peril. This is a much richer way, I think, of understanding the insights that economics offers than the very narrow focus on satisfying material wants, which is where most introductory texts begin (unfortunately). I think 'economics as choice' excludes social phenomena by the limits it forces on theory. The development of neoclassical economics is itself a good empirical example. To use the tool efficiently, economists have narrowed their field of vision and ended up with market exchanges, studied rigorously with mathematical analyses. Also, are institutional frameworks 'chosen' or do they evolve over long periods of time with small, big and messy actions of many, many individuals? But of course I agree that they should not be are ignored. Economists can legitimately focus on material needs, because sciences need boundaries, but that should not preclude them from situating the material needs within a social context. The fact that consumers have real choice, but workers don't, is something that choice theory cannot deal with, unless the power variable is part of the equation. Women's work is very much a matter of material conditions, but it is not totally explicable unless culture and patriarchy are brought in the picture. IMHO the poverty and sterility of economics would come from its practice, not its subject matter of material wants. Sumitra Shah