ABSTRACT
Textbooks on economics regularly recite the axiom that an economic system answers three basic questions: What? How? and For Whom? In meeting the material requirements of humans, these abbreviated questions translate into the following: What do we produce (composition of goods and services)? How do we produce it (productive arrangements and technology)? And for whom is it produced (who gets to consume the output)? Any economic system, whatever its particular characteristics, is supposed to answer these questions if it is to qualify as an economic system.
