From modern economy to a socio-economic understanding of production and material exchanges
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Abstract
Modern or Scientific Economy has developed a simplified and legalistic view (in the manner of physical laws) of the diverse activities of production and material exchange with which human groups gain their sustenance. However, although it has been developed around the specificities of modern Western societies, this perspective has been imposed on all kinds of societies, and even all historical periods. This article aims to contribute to overcoming that simplification, emphasizing the importance of a truly empirical technical-practical approach that considers sustenance activities from the socio-cultural contexts that give them their practical form, logic, and meaning. This view, together with a new appreciation of the complexity of sustenance phenomena, rejects the possibility of framing them within a rigid legalistic framework.