Introduction

It has been decades since Douglass North (1977) pointed out on the peculiarity that despite market is the central institution, economic literature discusses its role so rarely. Similarly, George Stigler (1967) pondered the question why too little attention has been paid to the theory of markets notwithstanding economic theory is based on markets. Our current situation is not, in this particular sense, much better. Ongoing specialization diverts attention from general economic questions. It is almost believed, or at least such impression is usually spread out through the current economic discourse, that “big questions” are already solved; that the thing we need the most is more detailed research on particular aspects of market economies which could fix minor deficiencies occurring in the economic system. Abstract theorizing of market principles belongs to the past. But the difficulty we then face is that specialized insights are hardly aggregable without understanding fundamental motion of a system driven by market mechanism.