General economic categories and socioeconomic processes

Sax accepts the conceptual foundation laid for economic theory by Carl Menger, Friedrich von Wieser and Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk. Needs must be satisfied by goods, because man knows that he depends on them.

These processes are, in a certain sense, matters of technique and psychol­ogy, and they have to be distinguished from the second category, from socioeconomic processes. The description of these categories follows tradi­tional paths. The category of services, however, is dealt with differently. Man needs fellow human beings in order to shape his relations with God, to realize his urge towards knowledge, to create emotional excitement through art, to arrange defence against enemies and struggle against diseases. People who provide services (which is essentially a non-economic activity) do not pro­duce ‘goods’, but live from the redistribution of goods. Immaterial goods, like human capital or rights, are not goods (Sax, 1887, p. 33) and Sax notes that, in excluding rights and relations from the concept of goods, he is in agreement with Bohm-Bawerk who also argued for a conceptual difference in his Rechte und Verhaltnisse (1881). The distinction seems to be influenced by the classical dichotomy of ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ labour. Sax notes that not all economic processes can be depicted as processes of produc­tion and that they are not necessarily productive (1887, p. 202). But there may also be some further theoretical potential in the distinction: services are really different from goods in several characteristics, such as storage, insecu­rity, quality, price negotiations and qualification of labour.

The economic structure gets its legal complement, because these cate­gories and relations are secured and shaped by law. Possession, for example, becomes private property: the right of individuals to do with their property whatever they like is secured, as long as others are not afflicted to an extent that impedes general social development. According to Sax, private property is not a matter of course, it is not a necessary element of human personality and it has not been founded by a decisive act of legislation. The legal arrange­ment of property is an expression of the tensions between individualism and collectivism, and possession is the outcome of human egoism shaped by the endeavour to maintain human existence under the pressure of the environ­ment (ibid., pp. 149f.). Permanent fighting is ruled out by individual and collective protection of rights, including the maintenance of minimal living standards for all individuals through means provided by the collectivity. Other economic categories are also shaped by the law.