Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Inefficiencies 165ulation. It also often drives them into a “sordid story ofgreed and manipulation.” In Japan in 1991, for example, thepresident and chairman of Nomura, the chairman of theSumimoto Bank, and the president of Nikko Securitieswere all removed in various scandals. At the same time, theGuinness Affair had just wound up in Britain, France had tocope with illegal insider trading, and criminal proceedingsagainst entrepreneurs in Germany were on a sharp rise.In short, entrepreneurial motivations, powerful as theyare, create not only marketable products but also such“products” as blighted communities and theft. They alsoproduce, through sales promotion, some of the irrationalityand ignorance that makes the market system inefficient.Because the strength of these motivations brings to a societyboth benefit and damage, it is not clear what level ofstrength is desirable. I know of no evidence that any existingmarket society has chosen an efficient level. That beingso, any judgment that, generally speaking, the level ofstrength of entrepreneurial motivations in market societyis efficient would be premature, not obviously true, and noteven probably true.