This historic contrast highlights the essential difference between non-capitalist commercial societies and an economy driven by the market imperative to enhance competitiveness by increasing labor productivity. To put it another way — in contemporary economic jargon — one might say that in these non-capitalist commercial societies, finance, along with commerce and rent-taking, was the “real economy,” in contrast to capitalist societies in which the financial sector is commonly distinguished from, and subordinate to, the “real” production of goods and services.