What is the Economy?

Have you seen the latest TV ad for Progressive?  Three staff members in white and aprons assure a mother of the savings when bundling insurance, and Mom mentions the economy.  The son asks "What's the economy?"

All four adults stammer for an answer.  Finally the son says, "I'll just look it up."

Here is that ad:

This ad does ask a very good question.  What is the Economy?  So I thought I would take a crack at that answer.  I am not looking it up, just speculating on the answer.

The Economy is a network on a macro or micro level for the exchange of labor and goods for other goods and labor.  It refers to maintaining a family or household, a business, a community, state, or nation, and refers to global trade.  Economy uses a medium called money to facilitate all the exchanges.  Economy may also refer to capital growth, where any income remaining after expenses is considered profit.

Certainly the Economy is much more complicated, but this is a boiled down definition of the concept.

Now I will follow the kid's example and look it up.

Merriam Webster has the following set of definitions.

1: the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period
also : an economic system
3  a: the arrangement or mode of operation of something : organization
b: a system especially of interaction and exchange / an economy of information
4  archaic : the management of household or private affairs and especially expenses

Dictionary.com actually paraphrases me pretty well and shorter: "the complex of activities related to the consumption, production, and trade of goods and services, as an ongoing functioning system."

What seems a daunting subject to define actually can be seen more simply.

"Okay, what is the definition of Politics?"

..oh boy...

Get our free mobile app