ABSTRACT
In the case of Quebec, as in the case of the Maritimes, economic thought was economics in the context of action, even though the intent, better, the connotation, of action in Quebec was radically different. However incongruous it may seem now, because Quebec is one of the two provinces that have democratically chosen membership in the Canadian federation, francophone Québécois are, technically, a conquered people. In consequence, for the French in Canada there is a reality that can be called notre peuple. There is a collectivité that does not sit well with the liberal assumption underlying neoclassical economics, the assumption that nothing counts but the value judgements of individuals in a decentralized power structure. So, when we speak of economics in the context of action being the concerns of those who, in speaking or writing of the state of the economy, made social action conscious of itself, we must remember that history had made francophone Quebec conscious of itself before any consideration of economics. In certain matters, whether efficiency is served or not, the operative welfare function is not that which sums up the wants of disconnected individuals. In Quebec ‘the optimal amount of coercion is not zero’.1
