Economics of Real-Life

This rare volume uses real-life material, past and contemporary, and substantive logic to deal with the evolving complexity of the economy: society’s arrangement to provision the material needs and progress of its members. Part one, the analytical section of the book, starts with an isolated human community and expounds the nature of its economic activity (production) for survival and material progress—emphasizing that production is essentially human interaction with nature. From the first two chapters four "analytical tools" are derived: ownership, authority, intermediation, and asymmetry of information. The rest of the book uses these tools to logically trace the evolutionary process of the economy until it reaches its present manifestation as global capitalism.