James Ahiakpor feels I misapplied his quotation. What he means to say I suppose is that he didnt intend his statement to be used in the context of child labour (I didnt have any particular type of child labour in mind - so far as I was concerned it could be the child labour in the England of Marx's day). I have sought simply to make the point that economics perhaps cannot be reduced to a simple theory of choice. I think earlier writers like Gunnar Myrdal understood this well enough. The Political Element, the "Values" Element, the Normative Element in economics deserve express attention. It is the interaction between theories of choice and these elements that constitutes the discipline. Anil Nauriya