Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

2 Market System Ascendanting both government regulation of business and social welfareprograms. Much of their change of heart seems motivatedby what they see as failures of the state: bureaucraticlethargy, for example, or excesses of partisanship. Some ofit, however, arises out of the case now often made for themarket system—as, for example, in the drive toward a commonmarket for Europe, in globalization, and in exploitingthe opportunities of the “New Economy.”Despite this great current of change, transition of communistsystems to the market system may never be complete.Some nations of the former USSR—perhaps Russia itself—mayreturn to old ways rather than continue to sufferthe hardships of transition. Many Russians see their embryonicmarket system as a cousin to gangsterism, so exploitativehas become their transitional system—whatever itmight be called. Russia today reveals some of the worst aspectsof the market system. The end of the story has yet tobe written.What a beginning to a century! These great changes andfailures ask for a book neither to celebrate nor deplore but tounderstand the market system, around which the dramasrevolve.One can study economics for many years without understandingthe market system. I graduated from college withoutunderstanding it. If my instructors understood it, theydid not take the trouble to explain its structure. Theytaught about trees rather than forest, about inflation, monopoly,and international trade. They somehow failed topresent the overarching structure of social organizationcalled the market system. You perhaps have seen a picturefull of diverting detail that only on careful examination