ABSTRACT
This chapter redefines economics as the discipline that studies the realization of values. Klamer narrates the development of the value-based approach and tells how this brought him to distinguish the human economies next to the market and organizational practices that are the subject of standard economics. He shows how the human economy is fundamentally different. The logic of the human economy, as he defines it, is relational, based on care, and depends on the willingness to contribute. It is a logic based on values and the realization of them. Whereas the standard economy pivots around market and organizational practices, the human economy comprises practices of the home, social and societal practices, cultural, or sense-making practices. This is the five spheres model that figures in other chapters. Here, in a seven spheres model, the personal sphere and the sphere of nature are added.
