The Market Process

The creation of wealth, that is objects of value, or goods, is the transformation of elements of the environment - means - into objects which will help achieve chosen ends.

Human societies - the interactions of individuals on the "human ant-farm" - are in a constant cycle of producing and consuming wealth.  That is, the individuals are all constantly using means to produce objects of value, and using such objects to satisfy ends.

Early humans were more-or-less self-sufficient but societies based on trade were more successful, because of the market process.  They were more successful because they were more productive and this led to more growth and eventually the overtaking, either by conquest or migration, of those societies that were not market oriented.

There is one main benefit that a society gains from trade and that is the division of labor and knowledge.  By producing only one good, and trading for all the other objects as desired, individuals do not have to waste time learning how other things can be produced or in switching tasks, and can therefore become more efficient at producing their one good (increasing either the quantity or quality of the product).   The wealth of the society - the amount of wealth on the market that can be consumed - increases, and therefore each individual is able to have a larger share of the available goods (that is, the "average wealth" of the individuals in the society increases; the "economic pie" becomes bigger).

Human brains are, by the nature of their desire to satisfy ends, always thinking of ways to be more productive, saving time and effort.  Technological improvements - that is, improvements to the methods used to produce goods, in order to be more productive - are recombinations of previous knowledge.  The production of goods in the modern world involves a huge interdepedence of knowledge stored in individual brains.  The market process, by enabling the division of labour and knowledge, allows for continuous restructuring of the human ant-farm into increasingly more productive and technologically advanced states.