Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

200 What To Make of Ithave this way because one is thoughtful and clear-headed,not because one’s aspirations have been distorted by marketlife.These alternative interpretations illustrate the difficultyof appraising market-system impact. Perhaps the veryease with which people turn to market transactions to pursuetheir aspirations is seductive and puts a stamp on thesociety. It becomes a society of people alive to what theycan obtain effortlessly from the market and dead to whatcollective choice will yield only uncertainly. Participationin community or collectivity declines and people become,as Aristotle would say, less human. Do we know thatmuch? We know that rates and kinds of participation incommunity differ from society to society and that theychange over time. But we do not know that the differencesare attributable to the market system or that they make usless human.instrumentalismWe often give no more personal attention or affection to aperson who sells us a railroad ticket than to the ticket-vendingmachine that often replaces the human being. Nor,while we treat the plumber with civility, do we usuallymake the plumber our friend. In market interactions, it isoften said, participants regard each other only or largely asinstruments. In a market transaction, you are simply ameans to my ends: I am interested in you only if you can offerme something I want. In contrast, nonmarket relationsare said to be warmer and less instrumental. The interactingparties find each other on some points interesting inthemselves; they each accept certain obligations of respect;and they are often joined in friendship.In this contrast we see what appears to be the obverse of