ECONOMIC GOOD

Economic good is an initially deficient good made plentiful enough to meet the specific insatiable need for it. Need precedes the acquisition of its relevant good, so the beginning of the process is marked by scarcity of goods, which is overcome in the attainment of the goods. Thus, the economic goods are established by a development of the diminishing need, as a lineage of goods leading from one good to the next. The goods are optimised: every single one is advanced in regard to all others. All economised goods are not simply free goods but are deficient goods made sufficiently enough. Availability of a good creates the approach towards some other goods, which are impossible without it, and the presence of these complementary goods demands the existence of the initial good. In such a hierarchy, every good has it place and fixed relations to the rest of the goods. The function and quality of a good is assumed by its place in that system of goods which is set by a want in a system of wants.

Historical Backdrop
• FRIEDRICH VON HERMANN Investigations in Political Economy: economic good.
• CARL MENGER Principles of Economics: goods of higher order.
• FRIEDRICH WIESER Natural Value: economic good.
• ALFRED MARSHALL Principles of Economics: wealth.
• EUGEN VON BOHM-BAWERK Positive Theory of Capital: capital.