misleading term
_Political Economy_ more available than the more accurately
descriptive term _Social Economics_, as the title of the
science which treats of the creation and use of wealth by an
organized society. Either title implies the existence of such
an organization, but the word _political_ calls attention to
the fact that it is under a government. The fact that, in a
study of wealth, is most important is that the exchanges of
products which spontaneously take place create an industrial
society whose activities, going on as they do under a
government, constitute the subject of the studies which are
properly indicated by the traditional term, Political
Economy. Government as such is not the subject of those
studies.

_General Facts First in the Natural Order of Study._--The primitive
and general facts concerning industry, which, in a broad sense, is the
creating of wealth, need to be known before the social facts can
profitably be studied; and a statement of the principles of Political
Economy should therefore begin by presenting a body of truth which is
independent of politics and sociology and so general that it is
illustrated even in that simplest of all conditions, in which no
market exists and every man makes by his own labor all the goods that
he uses. The wealth of a Crusoe, that of a solitary Esquimau, and that
of a pygmy in equatorial Africa have laws as well as that of a
European or American employer or bondholder. The qualities in matter
which make a share of it important for promoting the welfare of its
possessor can be detected in the simplest commodities that are
anywhere used. All kinds of industrial products have a common origin.
Labor and capital act together in making a birch canoe as truly as
they do in producing a transatlantic liner; and the productive power
of each of these two agents is everywhere governed by certain general
laws. Before ascertaining what is true of wealth when capital has
become complex and when laborers have become specialists, each
producing one particular part of one product and securing many
finished goods in exchange for it, it is well to state some facts
relating to wealth which are so general that they appear in all stages
of civilization.

_The Nature of Wealth._--The old English word _weal_ describes a
condition of life. It is the state of being "well off," or of having
one's wants amply supplied. Well-being in