"Such uninformed essentialist proclamations", be they what they are, do have a bearing on the history of Economics. The kind of "theorizing in the abstract" to which Medaille refers is not the kind of theory with which the practice of Economics begins. Practice in Economics begins with a complex situation that is troublesome. It tries to abstract the elements that bear on the trouble in an attempt to find a way to eliminate them. It is only as an after thought that the entailed abstraction is elevated to universal and eternal validity. This process of transmogrification from the here and now to the everywhere and forever may be warranted, but I conjecture that usually it is not. This is a recurring development in the history of Economics. Robin Neill