The primary theme of The Worldly Philosophers is that economics is an analysis of the market system, which has dominated (western) human society since approximately the 1700s. Economics breaks down into three subcomponents: the origins of the market system, its underlying laws, and its ultimate fate.

Early economic thinkers dealt with trade and currency, but economics as a profession only emerged with the market system, the third (and currently dominant) solution for the problem of survival. Under tradition and command systems, it was obvious how society survived—either by passing down tasks from one generation to the next, or by executing tasks as commanded and coerced. In a system where everyone follows their rational self-interest, it is not immediately obvious how societies solve the problem of survival. The worldly philosophers explained how the market system solved (or did not solve) the problem of survival, and contemplated whether or not the market system was the best way of ensuring societal and individual survival.

The worldly philosophers also discovered the innate laws that governed this new market system. Although all economists seek to understand these laws on a small scale, the great economics unveiled universal aspects of the market system that still influence economic thought to this day.