Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

190 What To Make of ItDo all these many considerations understate the freedomsallowed or encouraged in market systems? Freedom,you will correctly say, has not in fact been as greatly curtailedin the market systems of Western Europe and NorthAmerica as I seem to indicate. No, it has not, because thestate has in many ways stepped in to protect the libertiesthat the market itself fails to protect. States—that is, moststates—do not permit people to sell themselves into servitude,and they impose limits on discharge of employees,such as advance notification and dismissal wages. Unionsand other private groups also often intervene. That they andthe state intervene so frequently traces back to the frequencyof market offenses against freedom.Two Remaining CautionsClearing a slum or providing homes for impoverished eldersrequires that some people be compelled, at least to pay thenecessary taxes. A free people, one might suppose, need tobe able to pursue such collective ventures. If they cannot,they are not free. Take note of what might look like sleightof hand. In three sentences I have shifted from liberty of individualchoice to liberty of collective choice, suggestingthat people are not free if important collective choices theywish to make are not open to them. They are free as a peopleonly if under appropriate circumstances they can compel:for example, a majority compelling a minority to acquiesce.Market systems, we have seen, do not make a place forcollectively imposed compulsions. Claims about marketfreedom tie individual choices to the market system but fallsilent on collective free choices. They simply fail to confrontthe difference between a society of free people and afree collectivity, both thought desirable. Although you and