Of all the forces that affect human endeavors, the procurement and distribution of resources is the most important. Economics can be thought of as the "physics" of human behavior.
Economics is to human activity as Newton's laws of motion are to falling bodies. As a body falls, its behavior is governed by a set of physical laws that describe all that will happen during its journey. Various events in the natural world are controlled by different sets of physical laws. In electronics, for example, there is a rule that says that the electrical current always follows the path of least resistance. In terms of human behavior, one can say that activity always follows the path of greatest profit.
You often hear someone make some cynical remark about the "immoral" behavior of some group or company when the public interest is bypassed in favor of the fast buck. This cynicism is misguided and quite pointless. One can argue against this behavior in much the same way as one can argue against gravity. It makes no difference and changes nothing.
It has to be understood that this is natural behavior for people. It is part of the survival instincts that allowed us to survive all these millions of years to get where we are today. Now this is not to say that such behavior should be allowed to run freely, in fact it must be carefully controlled in order for any society to survive.
Economic activity can be divided into two types. First, there is the familiar short term or "fast buck" economics. It's the reason you get up and go to work; so that you can have something to eat when you get home. In general terms, whenever there is an economic opportunity, someone or some group will step in and take advantage of it in order to meet their survival or growth needs, regardless of its possible effects on society. It is most important to understand that if favorable conditions exist for any kind of economic activity, someone will (very naturally) try and do it. The most extreme form of this is crime, but most everyday buying and selling and working is of this type as well.
But there is also a second type of economics. It is long term economics. Thousands of years ago as Man was organizing into large scale societies, certain social structures came into being to help overcome the problems caused by unchecked short term economics. Societies set up laws to govern the behavior of individuals. The primary function of rules in a society is to preserve long term economic productivity. Children are cared for and sent to school so that they can become productive members of society. Hospitals are built and doctors trained to care for the sick as the population must be kept healthy for high productivity. Religions form to maintain family structure and to establish rules for interpersonal conduct so that social mechanisms will continue to operate smoothly. People are encouraged to explore in the hope that new and better ways of doing things are discovered that will have economic benefit, but at the same time a society will be resistant to change fearing that previous gains will be lost. Everybody is mutually interdependent; small parts of the larger biological structure.
Morality can be described as a set of rules to protect the long term economic goals of a society. You may perform any act for your personal economic interest so long as the long term economic interests are not jeprodised. Persons who do not support the long term economic goals of a society are labeled as criminals and are removed from society by various means.
Since there is tremendous natural motivation for groups or individuals to act in selfish (short term) ways, society, guided by its morality, must carefully tailor the economic environment to ensure that long term economic goals are not forgotten. When an automobile manufacturer, for example, starts to produce unsafe cars, because their short term interests benefit, the society will respond in some way to eliminate the economic advantage that the production of unsafe cars allows. This can be done by passing laws that require the payment of large fines that would offset the car maker's profit or the civil courts could become become filled with lawsuits against the manufacturer for the economic damages caused by the defective cars. By whatever means, the society must remove the economic andvantage that motivates the offender in the first place. If this is not done then the action will be ineffective.
Conflict within a society is almost always caused by various sub-groups competing for the limited available resources. Management will always try to exploit labor and vice versa. The majority will always keep minorities down if it is to their economic advantage to do so. The list goes on and on. In many ways, the flow and consumption of resources within societies resembles weather. There are highs and lows and fronts, but there are also storms.
Repression is usally the result of poor economic conditions. This tends to explain why there are almost no poor democratic countries. Poor nations need strong central control to hold what little economic organization they have together. This also explains the rise of fundamental religious movements. It is simply nature's way for a society to boost economic performance by reducing individual freedom.