This is the first step in our investigation How do economic forms impact community?
What are economic forms?
We're starting by simply making a list of economic forms, commenting on how they impact community. As we do this, we are also considering how to rank them along a spectrum between support for communality and for individuality.
In making this list, we are including specific categories, that is, those whose examples share common features as economic forms. Thus we are not including particular examples (as they are not patterns) and we are not including general categories (as they themselves include a variety of patterns based on different principles). Further below, in our section on Sources of Examples, we do include links to sources about general categories if they lead us to specific categories.
| Economic form | Remarks |
| Gift | |
| Loan | |
| Purchase & Sale | |
| Sharing | |
| Ownership | |
| Sales tax | |
| Income tax | |
| Value added tax | |
| Sales tax | |
| Tarriff | |
| Toll | |
| Fee | |
| Property tax | |
| Payroll tax | |
| Consumption tax | |
| Queuing | |
| Library | |
| Freeway | |
| Charter | |
| Currency | |
| Family | |
| Nation | |
| Bank | |
| Barter | |
| Haggling | |
| Stocks | |
| Bonds | |
| Shares |
Sources of Examples
Economic forms
- Alexander Dobeson ,Saskia Brill, Veit Braun. Sorting out economic forms: a field guide to contemporary capitalism 2023
- Pierre Bourdeiu. The Forms of Capital.
- Geoffrey Kay. Economic Forms and the Possibility of Crisis.
Economics terms
Ideas
Relate the forms with shared ownership as rooted in joint intentionality, which Tomasello argues is the basis for our humanity, our ability to form teams on the fly, and share the fruits of those efforts. Individual ownership can be understood as a team of size one.