Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

268 Thinking About Choicespolicy. And we have just seen that governments in marketsystems often plan through purchases, taxes and subsidies.So we had better say that a difference between any realworldmarket society and the alternative is that the marketsociety engages less in central planning than does the alternative.Although this reformulation diminishes the differencebetween market and nonmarket systems, it retains a mammothdistinction. For it tells us that central planning issuited to the pursuit by government of governmentally decidedor collective goals while the market system is suitedto the pursuit, sometimes by government but more often bymillions of market participants, of a mix of collective andindividualistic goals. Since human beings everywhere wantto pursue both collective goals like the construction ofroads and individualistic goals like food and entertainment,the advantage of the market system on this point seems obvious.This is a fundamental—and on the whole highly useful—distinctionbetween central planning and market societiesif it is understood to be only roughly true. It is notwholly true, because government officials or planners, althoughacting for the collectivity, often set out to achievethe same individualistic goals, like better nutrition, thatpeople seek through market purchases. And participants inmarket systems often organize collective organizations likegated communities.Widely accepted as roughly valid, this distinction toodoes not go far enough. We need to add a further contrast—between planning method when the market system is usedfor planning, and planning method in the look-alike system.The contrast is not obvious and is less familiar thanthe first distinction just drawn.