E. Roy Weintraub wrote: >Remind me again what such uninformed >essentialist proclamations about the true nature >of physics, and the true nature of economics, >have to do with the History of Economics? "Uniformed" is easy to say, but if you have a theory of physics in which the fall of rocks, feathers, and 747s are unaffected by air pressure, I would like to hear it. However, you are correct in asking about the connection with History, since I foolishly cut out the post I was responding to. It was Doug Mackensie's post in which he noted that "Adopting the term open trade does nothing if the idea of Walrasian competitive equilibrium remains as the central concept in modern economic theory. Institutional factors will be downplayed or ignored for as long as economists continue to think of the Walrasian pure exchange model as 'high theory'. Economists who think in terms of pure exchange will end up with a mistaken notion of efficient trade no matter how it is termed, so long as they are educated in Walrasian terms. " Sorry for the confusion. John C. Medaille