The term economics (word meaning: ) Describe all mechanisms and actions of humans with the goal create "“value"” of using and of promoting resources existing in the environment and resources created by humans for the satisfaction of their material and immaterial needs.

Economics is the German word for oikonomia (griech.), in the antique Hellas and Rome the administration of the household marked. Economics was used traditionally as spreading name for the connection of soil, raw materials, trade, work and capital.

Historical development

As independent field of knowledge the economy exists only since the end 18. Century, as Adam Smith its "„investigation for nature and the reason of the wealth of the nations "“(1776) published.

Fundamental economic theories originated in in the impression of the industrialization in 19. Century, so by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; Writers such as Emile Zola and Mark of Twain described effects of capitalism. Beginning 20. Century described max of webers, Rudolf Steiner and Werner Sombart in critical way the consequences of the industrialization. The terms alienation and exploitation of the work belong since then to the basic reproach against each economic development.

Apart from in particular the economic liberalism represented by Milton Friedman stand in the center of the today's restaurant discussion globalization, ecology and mass unemployment as well as the discussion around the basic income.

The today's stage of the economy in the western industrialized countries, which is characterized by a historically uniquely high supply of goods, is called "„post office-industrially "“, "„post office-materialistically "“and "„post office-modern "“. In connection with features like the so-called new Economy and the so-called Freeware (goods and software, which are delivered in vain) took place among other things in the works of Norbert Bolz, Ulrich Beck and Peter Sloterdijk different disputed interpretations of the today's economy.

Economic sectors

A typologisierende history of the economy begins with the utilization of the goods existing in nature, for example the food and the raw materials. These ranges of the economy - agriculture, forestry and mining industry - form to today a fundamental component of the national economy.

Whereupon constructing an economy is developed, which converts already existing goods into other goods. This range is called "“commercial economy"” and covers handicraft and industry.

The range of the service economy covers a far spectrum at immaterial goods for industry and consumer. For this also the economic sectors of the trade and the traffic economy count. In the modern economy the information economy is besides often specified as newer, independent range, which is to guarantee the supply of organizations and humans with the correct information at the desired time. In recent time beside it the range of the culture or creative economy is the subject of economiceconomics research and politico-economic initiatives.

Restaurant economics

The Subsistenzwirtschaft is the historically original restaurant form, in which each humans or groups of humans in each case transfer such as family, kinship or village community the tasks, which are necessary for the self-sufficiency for the satisfaction of the needs and. It is a form of the exchange of worker within the social group according to the individual abilities and needs without externally specified standards for goods, services and rules of the exchange. Ontogenetisch stands the Subsistenzwirtschaft until today at the beginning of the human life in giving and taking parents and child and within the families and partnerships.

The of the Subsistenzwirtschaft the bartering supplied, e.g. on a market. On the basis of larger social communities individual humans can concentrate by specialization and division of labor on the production or transformation of certain goods and increase thus their productivity. The satisfaction of the needs shifts thereby from the self-sufficiency on the mutual exchange of these goods by trade. The principle of this Tauschwirtschaft is the basis for practically all restaurant economics, which go beyond Subsistenzwirtschaft.

Most modern restaurant forms can be divided in principle far into the ranges Naturalwirtschaft and money economy. The original Naturalwirtschaft facilitates the exchange of goods only between persons, who have mutually goods for the satisfaction of the needs in each case of the different one. The money economy introduces the neutral article of exchange money, which facilitates the search for a suitable Tauschpartner.

The reality shows today in most large restaurant nations a predominant concern for money economy. However in most cases also an often not insignificant part at Naturalwirtschaft is to be observed, on the exchange of mutual achievements is based. In particular in associations, social organizations, in addition, within the range of the moonlighting can be determined this very day often exchanges without use of money.

The range of the money economy can besides is roughly continued to partition in free-market economy and planned economy. The free-market economy leaves solely responsible acting to the involved ones. At the free market an optimal reconciliation between needs and goods is to be achieved.

In the planned economy however the fair distribution of the produced goods is to take place according to the determined needs of humans with the help of a central planning. The private possession of means of production is not permissible here.

In the reality elements of both beginnings can be found in most economic systems. Thus also in the western service nations always individual economic sectors were planned-economy covered, for example the postal service. Also today the goods "“security"” apply and at least in large parts "“public traffic"” as task of the state and are central administered into practically all modern managing. In order to use despite the planned-economy beginning the advantages of the free-market economy for the optimization of the employment of funds, increased for the form of the adjusted market one seizes, in which the involved ones enjoy large economic liberty, but certain national controls, e.g. the contribution from minimum performances to fixed prices, are subjected.

In Western Europe the speech often is from social free-market economy. This term was coined/shaped to a large extent by Ludwig Erhard, the first German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs after the Second World War and later Federal Chancellor, into the 1950er years.

Economic science

To the investigation of economic acting, which laws of the economic development and for the scientific support of national and operational deciding have themselves the economic science developed. They are usually divided into two ranges: the political economy and the management economics.

The political economy examines overall economic connections in the as result of rational decisions of individual participants (households, enterprises) and in the as result of the systematic interaction of overall economic aggregates (overall economic demand, investments, price level etc.).

The management economics are concerned with the behavior of an economical unit, the enterprise, in the context of their limited possibilities and means.

As a founder of the modern economic science mostly the Scot Adam Smith is regarded, which published 1776 its book at Inquiry into the Nature and Causes OF the Wealth OF nation. There Smith criticized up to then mostly the prevailing mercantilism. Its wide-spread work found large acknowledgment in Great Britain and the USA and obtained for the first time the idea of a new science direction for the investigation of economic acting. Smith brought in particular already existing ideas of the division of power of Montesquieu and the ideas together of the historian David Hume over human motives and ways of acting.

The modern political economy is based on the one hand on the investigations and publications of John May pool of broadcasting corporations Keynes, to that in its disputed work The Economic Consequences OF the Peace the reparation payments after that 1. World war as ruin for the national economy of Germany criticized. Above all its general theory of the occupation, the interest and the money dominated the macro-economic discussion several decades. Apart from this inquire-oriented (keynesianischen) political economy has in the second half 20. Century increasingly an offer-oriented orientation (monetarism) spreading and acknowledgment found, which decrease/go back on the economist Milton Friedman. Within the politico-economic range these offer-oriented aspects were converted most clearly in England by the Prime Minister minister Margaret Thatcher (Thatcherismus) and in the USA by president Ronald Reagan (Reaganomics).

In the economic science today is mostly assumed the needs of humans are theoretically unlimited. Since the means are however limited for the satisfaction of these needs, inevitably not all needs can be satisfied. The goods for the satisfaction of the needs are thus scarcely (principle of the goods scarceness), the economy describe in this view the task to use the existing goods optimally.

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