This final chapter continues in the spirit of Chapter 10 demonstrating that network economics can be applied to the modeling of a wide variety of social phenomena. The analysis of languages carried out in Section 11.1, deals perhaps with individuals’ most important network, the language, which is the fundamental input to any production process and technology progress. Section 11.2 models a social phenomenon that has been with us for thousands of years and continues through the third millennium, namely religious affiliation. Section 11.3 explains how it can happen that attorneys’ fees rose over the years while during the same period the number of (per-capita) practicing attorneys has been steadily increasing. Section 11.4 verbally describes the way in which international time is coordinated. Section 11.5 verbally discusses the history of the two different driving patterns found in our world.

Languages as Networks

It is hard to imagine how humans could interact without the use of some kind of a language. Spoken and written communication constitutes the basic activity of each person, and provides the most essential input for human progress.

Major observations

Our major observation is that people speak a wide variety of languages. Different languages are spoken in different countries and within countries. For example, in India there are twenty-four languages each spoken by a million or more persons; and numerous other languages and dialects, for the most part mutually unintelligible. English is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication, but Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people.