Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

264 Thinking About ChoicesIf we contemplate not only the use of state purchases,subsidies, and taxes to cope with spillover and other problemsbut also for programs for reducing poverty, dampeningthe greatest inequalities in wealth and income, and softeningthe hardships of the quid pro quo, the market systemalone is in some respects like an unfinished apartmentbuilding in which people can live if they must, but not well.It is not habitable until internal partitions, heat, light, andother amenities are installed. Without them, most peoplefind it too dark, cold, and insecure.With purchases, taxes, and subsidies, societies make themarket system livable. But just as the apartment’s heatingsystem may turn out to be a contractor’s rip-off or the internalpartitions too flimsy, what the state attaches to the marketsystem may range from inconvenience to disaster. If themarket system is a structure to which the state can attachmany improvements, nations differ greatly in what they attachand with what success. In this respect, every marketsociety has always had and continues to have great choices.It is no small point, however, that such improvements(the governmental programs) need the structure (the marketsystem) to which they are attached.