China Strikes a New Balance for the Yuan

Economics is dubbed the dismal science because it studies scarcity. A question that predates human society is how scarcity should be distributed. Nature rewards the strong, the quick and the cunning. Societies mitigate this natural system in care for the young, weak, sick and less fortunate.

Two chief distribution mechanisms have emerged in human society: command and demand. Command refers to authorities, whether sacred or profane, determining who gets what when. Demand refers to the role of markets aggregating information and distributing scarcity through a price mechanism.