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Economists sometimes argue that scale is not an independentconsideration—that if we had perfect information and could internalizeall external costs and benefits into prices, then the market would automaticallystop growth at the optimal scale. In other words, scale wouldhave been subsumed under allocation. This has a certain plausibility if weaccept the assumption of “perfect” information. However, if in the nameof perfect internalization we insist that prices should incorporate the costsand benefits of different scales, we would also have to insist that prices reflectthe costs and benefits of different distributions. But if we tried to useprices based on a given distribution as the means of measuring the costsand benefits of a change in distribution, we are again being circular.Economics has clearly recognized the circularity and insisted that justdistribution is one thing, efficient allocation another. Economists wouldnot, for example, appeal to perfect information and advocate raising theprice of things poor people sell or lowering the price of things poor peoplebuy in order to internalize the external cost of poverty into prices. Insteadthey might advise us to redistribute income directly to attain a morejust distribution and let prices adjust. This also makes sense for questionsof scale.The way to get prices to reflect the values of just distribution and sustainablescale is to impose quantitative restrictions on the market thatlimit the degree of inequality in distribution of income and wealth to a justrange and that limit the scale of physical throughput from and back to natureto a sustainable volume. These imposed macro-level distribution andscale limits reflect the social values of justice and sustainability, which arenot personal tastes and cannot be reflected in the market by individualisticactions. The market then recalculates allocative prices that are consistentwith the imposed scale and distribution constraints, thereby in a senseinternalizing these social values into prices.Since it is circular to use prices to calculate optimal scale and optimaldistribution, we need some metric of benefit and cost other than price (exchangevalue). As already suggested, this metric is the value of justice inthe case of distribution; it is ecological sustainability, including intergenerationaljustice, in the case of scale. These are collective values, not individualmarginal utilities per dollar equated between different goods inorder to maximize satisfaction of individual tastes. If we reduce all dimensionsof value to the level of subjective personal taste, then we cannotcapture or bring to bear on the market the real weight of objective socialvalues, such as distributive justice and ecological sustainability.Chapter 21 General Policy Design Principles • 419