That's correct. Alfred Marshall's theories of utility are the basis of modern economic analysis. Todd Buchholz' New Ideas from Dead Economists has a great introduction to these ideas while being more accessible than the typical econ textbook.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction...

The rise and plateau of the Japanese economy is one of the most interesting case studies on macroeconomics I've come across. There's a great review of it in "New Ideas from Dead Economists" [1].

It's fascinating to look into why the "inevitable," didn't come to pass. Likewise with many of the doomsday predictions we see here, the pivots that prevented many from occurring (arguably, fall of the USSR, massive public health efforts, sheer luck)are sweet spots in history. It'd be interesting to do some kind of meta-analysis of future predictions and these little events that seemingly held back the fates. I can almost groan about trying to assess the qualitative data now...

[1] http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction...