_General_ Economics and one
which illustrates the inherent power of capital, though we may be far
from thinking of lenders and borrowers in a modern "money market" or
of dealings of any one class of men with any other.

_The Field of Social Economics._--The moment that we begin to examine
economic relations that different classes of men sustain to each
other, we enter the realm of _Social_ Economics; and we do this
whenever we study modern business dealings. Even our hunter would take
part in a social economy if he began to sell some of his game; and
from that time on his income would depend, not wholly on his relation
to material nature, but partly on his relation to other men. A good
market for his game would come to be of the greatest importance to
him; and a market for anything implies a social method of securing
wealth.

_Fundamental Facts Common to Primitive Life and Social Life._--The
relations which men sustain to each other in civilized industry are
thrown into the foreground in the science of Social or "Political"
Economy.[1] It is an organized system of industry in which we are
engaged, and it is that which we care most to understand. Until
recently we have had a far less satisfactory understanding of the
social element in industry--that is, of the relations that men who are
producing wealth sustain to each other--than we have had of such
general facts as a primitive producer needs to know. We have had, for
example, much information concerning the materials which the earth
contains and the way to make them useful. We have had a practical
knowledge of what wealth is and of the mode of creating it, and we
have been able to identify it as we have seen it either in the raw or
the finished state. We have known what labor is, how it proceeds and
what helps it needs to enable it to make clothing, to prepare food,
etc. We have not known as much about the way in which the modern
market for such products is regulated, and how a modern tailor or
baker shares gains with the man who employs him and provides him with
materials and tools, and the main purpose of studying Economics is to
get an understanding of such social facts; but this cannot be done
without first bringing before the mind the more general facts
concerning the inherent nature of wealth itself and of the activities
that are always necessary--in uncivilized life as well as in
civilized--for creating and using it.

[1] Past usage renders the somewhat