vol 3: Development
chapter 12: Economy
introduction
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This site is part of the natural religion project The natural religion project A new theology A commentary on the Summa The theology company
Introduction
An industry is an organ of the body politic devoted to providing some common need. An industry comprises a large number of businesses. The sum of all the businesses and industries devoted to providing the goods we want is the economy. These days we live on a global economy. Economics studies the structure and behaviour of economies with a view to making them more stable and more productive.
As usual, we study systems by making and playing with models, either in our minds, or with computers. Modelling requires some sort of measurement. For centuries now, economists have modelled their subject using money as the measure of value. In classical economic theory, the monetary value of any good is decided by the market. The market, if it is working properly, finds a balance between the individual and collective desires and choices of buyers and sellers.
Everybody buys and sells to increase their own wealth. For a given level of economic effort, the overall determinant of wealth is productivity, the yield of good per unit of effort. Economic management seeks to increase productivity by deprecating inefficient economic activity and promoting efficiency.
Feelings about what is efficient and what is valuable are partly determined by religious and political beliefs. In this part of the site we study these religious and political constraints on economy and seek to find a recipe for maximizing wealth in manner consistent with humanity and justice and sustainability. We suggest that the wealth of a community is a function not just of its total, but also of its distribution through the community.
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Related sites:
Concordat Watch
Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
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