Description:In this theoretical investigation of the development through time of a pure labor economy, the author shifts the theory of long-term economic development away from the traditional framework based on capital accumulation to new foundations based on learning and technical progress. He gives a detailed analysis of the structural dynamics of prices and production, and the necessary mobility of employment. Institutional and social learning, know-how, and the diffusion of information emerge as the decisive factors accounting for the success and failure of industrial societies.