One of the defining characteristics of the modern economy is that it's awfully complicated. Even a fairly humble product such as a shirt might incorporate cotton from west Africa, oil from Indonesia to make the polyester in the button (manufactured in China), and designs sketched out by an Italian using American computer software. Then there is the sheer number of products: Eric Beinhocker, author of The Origin of Wealth, reckons there are probably 10 billion distinct products and services available in a modern economic environment such as London, Tokyo or New York. It's a guess, but a fairly educated one. Beinhocker also estimates that for a traditional hunter-gatherer society, the number is closer to 300.
現代經濟體的一個標誌性特徵就是其高度的複雜性。即便是像襯衫這樣較爲低端的產品，也可能綜合了西非的棉花、印度尼西亞的石油——用於生產紐扣（中國製造）中的聚酯成分——以及某個義大利人使用美國電腦軟體繪製而成的設計圖。此外，現代經濟體的產品數量也多得驚人：《財富起源》(The Origin of Wealth)作者艾瑞克•拜因霍克(Eric Beinhocker)估計，在倫敦、東京及紐約等現代經濟環境中，可能存在100億種不同的產品和服務。這雖是個猜想，但不乏理論與事實依據。拜因霍克還估計，在一個傳統的採獵社會，這個數字更接近於300。