Elan Maj

Business Foundations 1050

Professor Engh
December 14th, 2014
Ch. 6
In chapter sixs The Economic Revolution Heilbroner, the author, assumes
the reader knows that man came down from the trees because man has evolved
from its once primitive state, and the author uses trees as a metaphor for mans
evolution. According to Heilbroner, the sole reason man has succeeded in
perpetuating himself is because man is a socially cooperative creature which means
that man holds a social responsibility to himself, but then he argues himself that
cooperation is more important to the survival of the species because the specious
must rely on itself to evolve to understand a better way of living, which means the
species might be self centered. The conflict between self-centeredness and
cooperation is that in a primitive society its peoples rely on cooperation to complete
daily tasks. On the other hand, an advanced community lacks the cooperation that
brings society together, and this lack of cooperation makes it difficult to prevent our
social human society from extinction.
Unfortunately societies existence hangs by a hair because every persons role
in society depends on the other person, and if one person fails the chances of many
others failing become possible; this can be considered a domino effect. Mans first
way of protecting itself against social collapse is by creating tradition that is passed
down from generation to generation, which gives man purpose. The second way is

the use of authority to get objectives done, and lastly the invention of the market
system prevented the social collapse of humanity.
A tradition-based society is one that of ancient Egypt where their religion
said that you must follow the occupation of your father. Also, occupations in India
were given based on your families class in society. An authoritative society is one
like that of the Soviet Union where one person made decisions for many.
The market system works because man is supposed to do whatever he can to
be better off financially, according to Heilbroner, and this desire to be better off
gives each man a task. Economists did not know how to solve the problem of who
will do societies dirty work until the market system fell into place. The change to
the Market Economies from the way it use to be represents a revolution because the
change, however slow, was extraordinarily large. The way of life used to be based
on having enough money or things to get by, the idea of being profitable, or working
had not occurred to these ancient societies yet.
The view of personal gain during the Middle Ages was the equivalency of a
sin. People viewed profit as a crime and were often fined. The reason why the
Middle Ages did not have a market system is because the idea of land, labor, and
capital did not exist yet. Also, the worlds higher lords still had an authoritative rule
over their people, so with the same rules and duties being passed down from
generation to generation society could not advance.
After the revolution society was still weary of this profit motive. Not many
people wanted this way of life, and many fights, confrontations, and deaths were
caused by the importation of calicoes, which were preparing to take over the

clothing industry of the time. The Renaissance meant the rise of personal gain
because this was a time where many people created businesses where they traded,
usually in their own republic, and banked to achieve greater wealth. Each of these
republics was fairly independent from each other and relied on there own means of
trade. These republics also conducted in warfare against one another.
The market system must understand the relationship between land, labor,
and capital. Land is what allows labor to exist and also gives the allusion of higher
status, but because there is opportunity to work on these lands, capital also exists.
The decay of religious spirit contributed to the rise of capitalism and the
market system because now there were no higher rules that said that it was bad to
have a profit. Man was to decide this for himself from this point on. Scientific
curiosity was the most important factor of the Economic Revolution because it
allowed the creation of such items as the printing press, windmill, and the clock.
Without these inventions the market system would not exist because it would not
have allowed ideas and other revolutions to expand.