Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

16Necessary to Democracy?Like political democracy, the market system establishesmass control over elites. They constitute the twin alternativemethods by which millions of people can exercise popularcontrols over those relatively few people—entrepreneursand government officials—who actively make theproximate decisions.The two are of course intertwined. And it is widely believedthat a democratic nation-state is impossible if notlinked with a market system. If there is no market system,then there is no democracy. In this chapter we shall try tofind out whether that is true.So far in history, no democratic nation-states have existedexcept those tied to market systems. The world hasnever seen a democratic centrally planned system. Marketsystem without democracy is common—Indonesia andSaudi Arabia, for example—but no democracy withoutmarket system. So firm is the historical connection thatsome observers predict that Russia cannot achieve democracybecause it put democratic reform ahead of market reformand still lacks a market system that can support democracy.China, they say, is on the right track: market first.Before long it will have a suitable market-system base fordemocracy, if its rulers then permit democracy.At one time the world had never seen a democraticnation-state of any kind. In time, such a state proved to bepossible. That as of today the world has never seen a demo-