As economists interested in the history of "our" discipline, we have to ask ourselves: of what use is an "enlightenment", or of what use is philosophy, or (for that matter) of what use is economics, if it fails to address the fundamental issues in a society at the brink of chaos? Should the "blame" for the French Revolution not be laid on the shoulders of the most intelligent and best-educated minds in France for: (a) failing to see the Revolution coming (to the degree they failed to see it); (b) failing to address the concerns of their people; and (c) failing to distance themselves from their own elite class sufficiently to understand that it was futile to try to make the current system work, so that they could have implemented "root and branch" reforms that would have enabled the barbarism of the French Revolution to be avoided? Equally, in our day, should blame not be laid on the shoulders of the most-intelligent and best-educated "contemporary Philosophes" or economists who can at least dimly sense the huge challenges of our globalising world but who choose to hide behind the elegant formulae of mathematics - perhaps because (as in the case of the French Philosophes?) they do not want to risk their lifestyle.... Prabhu Guptara