It is curious how (painting with a broad brush here) the governments in Europe are comparably larger than the US gov. OTOH, non-profit work in Europe is not very dominant at all. The idea of donating to charity, that is, more than $5, is quite rare. I think this makes the private sector somewhat small.

On a related note, I seriously do not think that health care is best handled by the private sector.

FWIW, it’s funny how the so-called (by Americans) “socialist” (aaa!) countries have better food safety regulations and protections than the U.S. does. It’s been a totally uphill battle just to get basic labeling of nutritional information on products in the U.S., yet in Europe they go even further and ban all GMO-foods (at least this was the case a few years ago).

Sometimes freedom comes in the form of being able to live a healthy life, via restrictions on food production that don’t create new forms of e coli that kill your 10-yr old son.

Cool. Love your little breakdown articles.
I always learn something or understand something new.
Thats why i like reading you blog because you teach me things that i would like to know but dont have time to learn at this point in little understandable bite size chunks. Good Job.

Very good points! It’s true that the public sector receives their income through taxation. If they want more money, they simply increase the taxes…. but this really could be terrible for the economy.

If I harvest and plant seeds from my own garden, in which economy have I participated in your example?

You’ve forgotten the household economy. In fact, “economics” comes from the Greek, meaning the household economy, as in the use of the resources of the house (estate) in its functioning.

Seems to me this should be the most important one, for most people, of all in an ERE lifestyle, especially those of modest means– as in most people.

Interesting. Haven’t come across this classification before. This way of looking at the economy makes many things easy to understand.

I suppose one very obvious example of a state that is based primarily on the not-for-profit “sector” would bethe Vatican. This country is based entirely (derivative investments excepted) on funds generated through donations (or “begging”, as you describe it), and the use-of-funds side also is largely on this same principle.

One thought : This classification of yours can be used to describe the economy, or to describe the formal political structure. Often the two overlap, but not always.

For instance, the Vatican definitely has a “not-for-profit” economy (although they themselves make a more-than-tidy profit out of it, but that’s another story for another day) ; while their formal political structure may well be primarily “public”.

Another thought : How would you treat dictatorships? Would this three-pronged classification work for totalitarian regimes in general, and socialist or communist regimes in particular?