Magnetism applications permeate our whole modern society in its basics of electric power, communications, and information storage. Although the general public is mostly unaware of its role, magnetism has an economic impact of over 1% of the Gross National Product. The annual direct magnetic materials market is currently estimated at 650 million dollars, with dollar leadership shared by electrical steels and recording tape, followed by soft ferrites, magnetic disk packs and drums, permanent magnets, and nickel‐iron alloys. The magnetism market is also described with reference to the role of research leading to quality improvement and to a growing list of new applications. It is estimated that the cost of basic and applied research (U.S.) is about 5% of the direct magnetics market. The world output of publications on magnetics has increased sixfold over the past decade after a plateau during the 1950's. During this same period magnetism has become more popular relative to a total science publication base and its scope has broadened in research, in discovery, and in application.