This book deals with the causes of the present crises, but it claims that causes and policy implications cannot be properly assessed by focusing on allocative efficiency or income growth alone: it contends that a more general approach is called tor. based on social costs. It docs not deal with social costs according to the Pigou-vian or the C'oasian traditions. It draws on the work of Original Institutional Economics (OIE) such as Thorstcin Vcblcn. Kart William Rapp and Karl Polanyi. on post-Keynesians such as Hyman Minsk)' and. in general, on authors who have provided insights beyond the conventional wisdom of economic thought. The assumption underlying the book’s social cost perspective is that social costs arise because the money-centered accounting of capitalist market economics is biased relative to social requirements and needs. Although social costs may sometimes have a monetary dimension, they cannot be dealt with in money terms alone. What is at issue at a more fundamental level is that (1) labor and knowledge, nature, money and finance, and problem-solving social institutions arc treated as commodities. (2) our common knowledge is often distorted in order to favor vested interests. (3) whatever competition one might achieve, it cannot deal with the social dilemma between individualist profitability and societal serv iceability and. finally, (4) when social costs rise and the quality of life declines, so docs the ability of democratic collective action. Social costs, in this perspective, identify the issues that need to be addressed if public policy would wish to prevent the economy from subsuming societal relations and freedom. Social costs, in this evolutionary-institutional perspective, particularly elaborated by Karl William Kapp. both precede and follow the crises, as causes and effects of the current financial, real economic, resources and food, energy and climate, social, political and moral crises. The sections in this book provide a framework that better allows us to situate the issues and to appreciate the crises.