In this paper I offer new assumptions for an effort-management theory for economic activity. I begin by reviewing classical assumptions that resources possess value in use and are scarce that are adopted in resource-based theories for efficient allocation through competition. I suggest that economic theory developed under those assumptions has been useful only for explaining short-term activity when unrealistic conditions are applied and has not been useful for explaining innovation, unexpected change, or economic growth. Further, these assumptions support a justification to any who may wish to reduce the size of the human population. In this paper I argue that an economic theory for allocation of scarce resources has been misguided if resources are not indeed scarce. Instead, I offer the assumption that economic systems are limited by personal effort. Under this new assumption, I suggest an economic system may be analysed using complexity mathematics as an open complex system driven by independent agents who maximise benefit per effort, and in which interaction among agents is provided by the transfer of products.