Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

10 Market System Ascendantanother great recent movement—from dictatorship todemocracy. The Soviet Union expired in the pursuit ofboth. But the two movements differ: China’s masters pushtoward market system but not democracy. And many countrieswith market systems have yet to attempt democracyor, like Mexico, only now reluctantly are doing so. If you applaudthe movement to the market system as necessarilydemocratic, you are at least premature and possibly plainwrong: both China and Russia may carry market systemsinto and through the twenty-first century without democracy.In ostensibly democratic societies, market skepticssometimes fear that the market system may bring an end todemocracy. One of their fears is that big corporations alreadyexercise powers inconsistent with democracy; andthat multinational corporations overwhelm small nationstates.Again, we can begin by trying to get the facts straight,difficult as it is to unravel the many connections betweenmarket and democracy.What We Don’t KnowMarket advocates say that Western experience has nowconclusively shown that the market system can make a societywealthy. They also say that it is clear that it also protectspersonal freedom—market societies do not degenerateinto such impositions as the forced labor camps of theUSSR. Market successes prove, they might add, the obsolescenceof tired old attacks on the market. So, they say, wenow all understand the system. They believe that we needtechnical studies by economists to maintain its health—doctors for the body economic—but that we adequately understandthe elementary anatomy and physiology of themarket system.