ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines the complex interplay of competitive, directive, and consultative mechanisms, and of the economic, political, and social sanctions. It summarizes the cultural changes most immediately relevant to economics under the headings of the eotechnic, palaeotechnic, and neotechnic ages. Personality studies and their practical application have advanced fast over the generation, and have arrived among other things at distinctly unflattering conclusions about the attention paid to personality in economic life. There are other more tangible tendencies in personality patterns in Britain. Probably about three-quarters of the whole British economy is dominated by firms of 'owner-manager' size. The institutions with which economists are concerned change in some ways surprisingly little, or at least surprisingly slowly. But the apparent stability in the main institutions of the economic world is deceptive.
