================= HES POSTING ================= I find this discussion fascinating but have not had the time to respond in full to the several topics being discussed. However, this one sentence caught my eye: Patrick Gunning wrote: >The fundamental idea is that of how normal human beings >interact under the conditions of the market economy. Is it? If we are talking history of economic thought, I presume we mean the history of thought about economics, which brings us inevitably to a definition of economics. This was not the definition of economics, as a subject, that was taught to me in school. Rather, I learned that economics is "the study of the production and distribution of goods and services". No "market" necessary there. One might add "in the face of scarcity". No market there, either. There IS a definition of economics as a topic that restricted it to the study of market activity because MARKET ACTIVITY IS OBSERVABLE. It is one of Marshall's main points in his Principles. It is one of Samuelson's main points in the original 1948 copyright text. We can observe prices and quantities, and therefore we can make rational statements about them. But that's sort of a cart-before -the-horse definition of a topic, isn't it? We restrict it to what is easy to study? Certainly it's a very serious restriction for the subdiscipline of what people have THOUGHT about economics. I doubt Samuelson would define economics that way today. On a more formal level, most economic analysis with which I am familiar is of the nature of constrained maximization -- that is, maximizing a set of goals subject to a set of constraints. Nothing necessary there about markets either. I emphasize this for three reasons: 1. If you are embroiled in a scholarly debate over the "rise of markets" and the effects of "markets" on society in general, then defining economics as the study of markets leaves one without much in the way of tools for debating issues involving ... the production and distribution of goods and services outside of markets. Or the satisfaction of wants in the face of scarcity. Or maximization of goals subject to a set of constraints. Or -- most important -- TRANSITIONS to whatever a "market economy" really is. In my field of history, the belief that economics is the study of markets has created a field day for those who want to discuss cash, "exchange", production/consumption/distribution, government policy, institutions, etc. etc. -- without having to deal with any of the massive literature in the field of economics on any of these subjects. All one has to do is declare the period "pre" market or "not in the" market, and academic economic analysis is off-topic. A pretty pathetic state of affairs. 2. Much of the canon of the subdiscipline of "history of economic thought" was written when a great deal of production and consumption occurred OUTSIDE OF THE MARKET. It is critical to an understanding of what the WORDS meant, what the THEORIES meant, and what the words and theories that have followed have meant. Something so simple as: What DOES "consumption" mean? Why would we care? 3. A great deal of what goes on in economic analysis today has to do with activities that are outside the market. Activities inside giant economic institutions. Household production. Etc. Now, of course, these can be redefined as "implicit markets" -- but something is lost in the process. IF we want to define these activities as "implicit markets", then we MUST redefine our prior definition of what a market IS. And then one is left with the conundrum that caused Marshall, and the early Samuelson, to want to restrict economics to OBSERVABLE market transactions -- because the institutional constraints of the quantity/price observable cash markets are quite different from the institutional constraints of "implicit" markets. And the type of analysis used is quite different as well. So from a standpoint of history of economic THOUGHT, it tells us nothing about changes in paradigms or research programs or worldviews to use a language implying nothing really changed in the transition from studying only OBSERVABLE markets as "economics", to studying "implicit" markets as "economics". The important information is lost by using the same word "market" to mean quite different things. Now, by just jumping in here without having sat and studied the other posts, I hope I haven't egregiously misread the posting to which I am replying. But I do think it is IMPERATIVE -- if one is to discuss the history of economic thought, one must first get the DEFINITION of economics nailed down. Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University (on leave 1995-97) <[log in to unmask]> ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]