> It isn't a work of economics. It is a work of political economy. Which
> just possibly really _is_ a different discipline than economics (if
> economics is a discipline at all -- which I doubt).
That's true. As a matter of fact my own department is called 'the Discipline of Political Economy' so I can confirm the distinction exists. :) Although of course it means something different when it coexists with Economics in the present.
I don't see how you can doubt that economics is a discipline, unless you think disciplines are platonic bodies of knowledge rather than historical, socially constructed divisions.
By the way, Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis came out a couple of years ago with a great two-volume history of the transition from 'political economy' to 'economics' and subsequent relations between 'economics' and other social sciences.
Mike Beggs