?? Professor Hay, which is not a forum for what debate? Do you mean HES should not be a forum for a debate on whether Canadians need care what people in the United States call economics, or do you mean HES should not be a forum for a query on the use of the term "coercion" in particular ways by economists? Do you mean that we can't talk about a strain of economics unless it's old? How old? Do you mean that there is no special economic meaning to the term "coercion"? I don't think so. If no one wants to discuss this, that's fine. But it is hardly off-topic. As I mentioned several months ago, I see a tendency to resurrect certain beliefs about morality, motivation, and politics that were commonly held by classical economists, without admitting the origins of the theories. I also see a trend to take a word used in the vernacular to mean one thing, give it a "special" meaning for economists, and then bounce back and forth at will from the vernacular to the special. And I see this with the way the term "coercion" is being used. I could be wrong. But at least I wanted to get a handle on the range of definitions in the current econ literature or discourse, and where particular usages and definitions are coming from - that is, where is the chain of scholarly literature, that "everyone" -- or everyone else -- has read, that sets up these definitions? It would seem to me that change over time in this manner would definitely be an appropriate topic. If it is not, the discussion will come to a halt (as it was, until your most recent posting). -- Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University