The economic organization of a social group "involves the ways people, time, and materials are organized to produce, exchange (and re-exchange), and consume goods and services. Such goods and services include:

1. Food, for physical sustenance, along with goods and services used for the purpose of religion, defense, justice, rites of passage, and other aspects of social and community life.
2. Natural resources, such as land, water, and minerals; human cooperation, involved in the division of labor; and technology.
3. Market places, foreign trade, monetary objects, devices for measuring, and record keeping." Cultural Anthropology a Christian Perspective (2nd ed); p.108, Grunlan & Mayers.

Grunlan and Mayers define two types of economy: primitive and peasant. "Primitive economies are those in which the main transactions involving land, labor, tools, and produce are socially obligatory gift giving. These societies are nonmarket and noncommercial societies in which the major part of resources and produce are transacted in nonmarket contexts." "Peasant economies are generally subsocieties of a larger stratified (arranged into classes or graduated statuses) society that is either preindustrial or partly industrialized." (ibid, p.110, 112) The title can be misleading for this class would include the industrially developed countries in Europe and North America.

Many of the tribes in which New Tribes Mission work are of the primitive type, but some are being rapidly forced into industrialization by encroaching civilization. Yet no matter how simple the economic structure is, economic organization is fundamental to their life, being linked with their social structure, their political system, their technology, their ritual institutions, etc.