Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Inefficiencies 151transferable fishing rights. Along these lines, there is roomfor reducing the inefficiencies of spillovers.Many small enough spillovers, we can also grant, are irrelevantto appraisals of market efficiency. For whatever thesocial system, all social interdependence generates floods ofspillovers. It irks me that you chew gum so visibly, and itmay disturb my neighbor that my dog barks. These spilloversare not peculiar to life in a market system. When onewants to compare the market system not with utopia butwith other systems, these inevitable spillovers can be ignored.Even utopia would perhaps permit many significantspillovers, for we cannot wish for a society in which peopleare so isolated that they never inadvertently hurt one another.Some options to impose significant burdens on othersare also highly valued as personal liberties. For my freedomor liberty I am allowed broad rights of free speech, eventhough I am sometimes greatly hurtful to you. I am also allowedto lock my doors against intruders, even if homelesspeople sleep on the sidewalks. We do not label the marketas inefficient because it permits us zones of liberty that imposespillovers on others.Governments of course engage in a variety of standing attemptsto control spillovers as, for example, through zoningand other land-use restrictions, curbs on waste emissions,programs for employee health and safety on the job, and regulatedjob termination. The frequency with which the statetries to curb spillovers indicates how common and threateningthey have become. It also suggests that hope for an efficientmarket system, if hope is possible, hinges on stateregulation of most transactions of enterprises, abhorrent asthe thought is to many people. If, on the other hand, the