Response t o P rof. Mary Morgan > As a European, I have read with interest but increasing > confusion this debate over coercion. I have never heard an > economist in an economic history or economics seminar say "economic theory teaches us that all government is coercion". And, although the "free market always provides a better solution" is prominent to any one who has lived through the Thatcher years in Britain, it perhaps remains more of a political slogan than an economic theory. In any case, the two statements do not necessarily connect. I am pleased to have been educated about the possibly European roots of the former idea, but wonder whether the > way the idea is expressed (above, taken from Mary > Schwietzer's message) denotes a particularly American view > about government stemming from political traditions? > Mary Morgan (London and Amsterdam) I do not understand what is meant by an "American view" in Mary Morgan's thoughtful response. When the earliest ideas about liberty and coercion informed discussions about the fledgling United States, etc., there was so much cross-fertilization on both sides of the Atlantic that it is frankly confusing to speak of an "American view." Perhaps the questioning of authority and the reliance on reason and (some respect for custom and tradition) is better related to the Reformation and the Northern European response to the "magician Priests" and the centralization of regligious information. This tradition may have had something to do with Locke and Hobbes, etc., and came to America by way of the Common Law and subsequent discussions. Even then it is not an "American view" but a "Northern European/American view" that may have been exported to Hong Kong and parts of India by Margaret Thatcher's predecessors. These are gut responses and not clearly thought out but the natural inevitable result of Mary Morgan suggestion that we seriously distinguish and American view from a European view on matters of basic liberty and coercion. L. Moss