Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

266 Thinking About Choicesspecial arrangements—some kinds of medical care to bedistributed free, for example. But the superiority of consumermarket choice as a general rule is now recognized.We noted that even authoritarian communist systemsfound it advantageous to make use of consumer choice. Wecan also imagine a system of central planning that makesnear universal use—far beyond communist practice—ofconsumer choice.Similarly, almost nowhere in the world is the case beingmade for recruiting a labor force by command, other than inspecial circumstances like military conscription. Again,both administrators and citizens find occupational choicefar superior to conscription. Again, even authoritarian communistsystems found it advantageous to make use of it.And we can imagine a central planning system making nearuniversal use of it.We can hardly doubt that, in addition, all societies willmake use of purchases, subsidies, and taxes as administrativeinstruments of the state. Again, communist systemsselectively did so. And we can imagine a hypothetical centrallyplanned nonmarket system making very wide use ofthem.For societywide coordination, the only alternative to amarket system is, then, a system that in many respectslooks like a market system. It too uses money, prices, consumerchoice, occupational choice, and various market operations.What difference then between the two look-alikesystems?The most common statement of the difference is that,despite these similarities, market systems use money,prices, and market operations to put the control of productionin the hands of masses of market participants while thealternative system uses them in order to put the control of