Until the twentieth century, economics treated the internal workings of its three primary agents – the consumer (or household), the firm, and the government – as given, nondescript, and beyond analysis. The standard assumptions in economics have been that: consumers' tastes are given; firms exist to maximize profits; and governments act in the interests of their constituencies. Perhaps the greatest mystery of economic thought is that the discipline chose to ignore for so long how firms and governments come into existence and what determines their true behavior. By not bothering to justify the presence or actions of any of its three essential components, economics rested on a tenuous foundation, open to much criticism. In many ways, it is a wonder that the discipline, sufficiently arrogant to have seen no need to explain the motivation or genesis of its key agents, would have been taken seriously by anyone but other economists! Yet the sheer number of economists and their pivotal positions throughout industry, governments, and other institutions bear testimony to the fact that society has put its faith in economics. Are economists the ultimate con artists to have pulled off this acceptance? No answer will be offered.

This neglect of its three component players has since been addressed by economists, especially during the latter half of the twentieth century. In recent studies, consumers' tastes are allowed to be influenced by the consumption process itself, as in the case of habit formation and addiction.