Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Freedom? 179cloudland of abstraction and argument that, no matter howtightly reasoned and illuminating, remains inconclusive.In this one chapter we cannot join the great debate onthe what and how of freedom. We can, however, nail down afew points critical to understanding the connections anddisconnections between market system and freedom. Iwant here to look only into market liberties, setting asidefor now discussion of political liberties, specifically, thepossibility that the market system facilitates politicaldemocracy and that democracy in turn protects freedom.Regardless of the presence or absence of political democracy,what attributes of market exchange either enlarge orcurb valuable options of market participants?The standard answer to that question is pretty wellgiven by definition of the market system. The market systemis a method of coordination by voluntary interchanges.Contrast the market system with a hypothetical physicalplanning system bereft of money and prices. In such a systemit is not free choice but command that determineswhich goods and services are to be produced, to whom andin what shares they are to be distributed, and to what jobspeople are to be assigned. In such a hypothetical planningsystem, whether a book would be published and whetheryou could have a copy would depend not on whether therewere freely choosing buyers but on an administrative decision.Whether you could, say, take a bus from Bangkok toyour apartment in the suburbs or pick up a few groceries onyour way would not depend on your spending but on permissionsgranted or denied.No matter how one might torture such terms as “free”and “command” to show that they mean somewhat differentthings to different people, the distinction just drawn betweencommand, on one hand, and choosing in markets, on