What is economics? What is the nature of economic system?

What is economic?
Economists offer different definitions on the concept of economics; however, they all
present this field of study in the light of emphasizing issues related to demands,
scarcity and rational choice of economic alternatives. The father of economics - Adam
Smith (1723 1790) - considered it as The Science of wealth. According to Jean
Paptiste Say (1767 1823), economics is the knowledge of the rules of governing
the formation of distribution and consumption of wealth. Edmond Malinvard and
some other economists define economics as the science which studies how scarce
resources are allocated to satisfy peoples needs in the society. It is concerned with
major activities of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth, and
institutions and act which facilitate and ease those activities.
Needs
Peoples material needs first and foremost and then their social and spiritual needs
demand needs to be identified and satisfied. Individual or collective needs may
change over time and space. According to Abraham Maslow, a theorist on human
needs, human nature is constituted in such a way that follow a hierarchy of needs
ranging from the lowest to the highest (the need of self-perfection). The primary
needs include the needs for food, drink and leisure, as known as physical needs.
Highest level of needs relate to talent, creativity, power, aesthetic, strength, which are
the highest spiritual needs.
In any society, satisfying the needs is constrained by personal incomes, scarcity of
resources and existing standard of the production system.
Scarcity of economic resources
It is common knowledge that some wealth are provided by nature with unlimited
quantity such as the air. The others, in general, need to be effected by human labor to
transform natural resources into economic wealth. However, compared to peoples
virtually unlimited needs, limit on human and natural resources are the very cause for
economic scarcity to be created.
Due to scarcity resources, we are forced to make choices when producing goods and
services to obtain maximum profit from what is available to us. However, it is
necessary to notice that when deciding to accept the opportunity to have one thing, we
have to give up another opportunity to have other thing. The value of that other
thing is the opportunity cost of the economic choice made by each individual among
us, or each enterprise, society.