A New Principles of Economics

CHAPTER OneWhat are markets?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003094869-3

1. Introduction

Markets are an emergent social technology that enables economic exchange among large numbers of people. Market actors specialise in terms of skills, knowledge, and equipment to produce goods and services that are sold and bought on the marketplace. They thereby gain relative to a state of autarky: Markets are communities of advantage.¹ Markets are a ubiquitous and pervasive element of complex human societies and, as such, are independent from the level of economic and technological development. Historically, markets emerged from nascent forms of institutionalised barter, often elaborated in the context of long-distance trade, and gradually evolved further to encompass ...