ABSTRACT
Social facts are, at least immediately, results of human conduct, economic facts results of economic conduct. The field of economic facts is thus first of all delimited by the concept of economic conduct. Since the circular flow of the economic periods, this most striking of all economic rhythms, goes relatively fast, and since in every economic period essentially the same thing occurs, the mechanism of the exchange economy operates with great precision. Production realises only the values foreseen in the economic plan, which previously exist potentially in the values of means of production. Costs as an expression of the value of other potential employments of means of production constitute the liability items in the social balance sheet. The social fact, as in all valuations, is in the circumstance that individual values are interrelated and are not independent of each other. The totality of the economic relations constitutes the economic system, just as the totality of social relations constitutes society.
