Economics is concerned exclusively with the study of capitalism. To presume that it applies to societies that do not possess the unique characteristics of capitalism will only lessen its capacity to illuminate the society to which it properly applies. I shall herein raise for examination an aspect of economics that many readers are likely to consider contentious, if not wholly unacceptable. I do not mean “almost exclusively” or “with some exceptions”; nor do I temper my contention with any other such qualifying phrase. I mean that economics has no relevance whatsoever to the study of the hunting and gathering tribes who account for over 99 percent of human history. Nor can it be applied to the noncapitalist stratified orders – kingdoms, empires, feudalities, command societies, or self-styled socialisms – that make up most of the remaining fraction of one percent.
