Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Chosen Domain 99uted freely rather than sold, for fear that market distributionwould not be wide enough. To deal with wartimescarcity, many societies rationed essential commoditiesrather than let low-income families be frozen out.For many people, the market is too harsh. They wantemployers to be restricted in their rights to discharge employees,or they may want the state to bail out an enterpriseon point of failing. Saving jobs in enterprises that can nolonger survive without government subsidies is a worldwidephenomenon, prominent in Italy, India, and China.In perhaps most societies, “upper classes” think thatboth philanthropy and government subsidies are necessaryto raise the provision of the fine arts above what the “lowerclasses” would otherwise be willing to pay for in the market.Were the arts left wholly to the market system, orchestraland operatic classical music might vanish from concerthalls.All societies forbid some of the market interactionsthrough which a person might construct inadmissible control,outside the market system, over others. For example,they do not permit individuals to use the market, exceptunder great restriction, to recruit, equip, and organize privatearmies. Exceptions are small private armed forces thatenterprises use for security of their premises, neighborhoodsecurity services, and the private “armies” that enterpriseshave sometimes used to break strikes. Some societies prohibitmarket purchase of firearms.Many societies also restrict some market interactionsthat concentrate control of communications in privatehands or in too few private hands. They also want to keepgovernment officials at a distance from market forces. If litigantscould buy favorable decisions from a judge, as theycan in what we call corrupt judicial systems, one of the pur-