Many people are too impatient to pursue such a seemingly abstract logical process. They begin at the opposite end, with the assumption that human action exists independently of human purposes. For example, productive activity is assumed to go on automatically and unconditionally, as inexhaustibly as the Energizer^® Bunny, regardless of how social policy might attempt to manipulate it to "public" ends. Wealth in particular is assumed to be a fixed, immutable asset. Market transactions are seen as divorced from human purpose; prices and other conditions can be altered by public policy, it is assumed, and buyers and sellers will continue to trade as if nothing had happened.

This "pragmatic" approach to human action is not only mistaken, but disastrous in its consequences, as will demonstrated in later sections.