ABSTRACT
The field of economic events has been assumed to be self-contained and self-sufficient, shut off from the rest of humanity's affairs by a wall of rationality. The boundary which divides economic or business affairs from those of politics, diplomacy, art and science is not a purely arbitrary one; an excellent case can be made out for it. The body of economic theory bequeathed by the nineteenth century largely, if tacitly, ignored the question of what can be known by the maker of choices amongst rival available courses of action, and concentrated instead on the logic of comparison amongst courses having assumedly known results. Valuation is expectation and expectation is imagination. A great paradox, yet one which epitomizes the paradoxical nature of economics, is the Theory of Games invented by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern as a means of treating relations in business as those of warfare rather than of organized collaboration.
