By: Andrea Terzi

Values transferred

The economic dimension of a social system is to be found in the activity of transferring valuable things and performing valuable actions. While the terms “exchange” or “trade” define a reciprocal action, it is best to consider, at a more general level, how value is transferred. In social systems, not all values being transferred entail reciprocal action. Read the rest of this entry »

By: Andrea Terzi

Economics is about giving and receiving

Within the social sciences, different disciplines overlap significantly with respect to their subject matter. Common themes in economics, such as money, production, consumption, or income distribution, fall within the realm of economics as much as they fall within other disciplines such as history, archeology, sociology, philosophy, or anthropology. Yet, each of these fields of knowledge looks at a specific dimension of the social world through its own glasses. The specific lens that economics looks through when studying the social world defines the economic dimension of social matters. Read the rest of this entry »

By: Andrea Terzi

Economics belongs to the social sciences

The social sciences aim to study the causes and consequences of human actions within a set of relationships in a social group, and economics is a field of knowledge within this broader endeavor. Although interest in “economic” issues such as rules of trade, price determination, money, debt, and national wealth has existed since the time of ancient civilizations, the specific subject matter of economics has been defined only in the Modern Age. In the 18^th century, moral philosopher Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations (1776), considered the study of the source of wealth and its distribution a separate discipline, and in 1805 Thomas Malthus became England’s first professor of “political economy.” Read the rest of this entry »