ABSTRACT
Modern humans think of themselves as imaginative, creative and resourceful. Certainly no other species on Earth comes close to Homo sapiens’ seeming mastery of matter and ability to shape the physical world to its own purposes. The accelerating proliferation of laptops, cell-phones, iPods and other electronic gadgetry alone, much of it unheard of only a few years ago, is ample testament to the inventiveness of the modern human mind. Meanwhile our houses get bigger and grander, our cars sleeker and faster and, at least in high-income countries, hardly anyone is concerned about where his next meal is coming from. Little wonder that we think of the economic process mostly in terms of production, wealth creation and general progress in improving the lot of humankind.
