Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Alternative to the Market System? 275A ReckoningContemplating, then, the difference between market systemand its alternative—the latter a look-alike yet withoutefficiency prices and without an entrepreneurial core, isthere a case for the market system? I do not doubt it. Thereis of course a case for the market system as an alternative tocentral planning, yet also, as we have just seen, as an instrumentof central planning when that is desired. I have not,however, claimed that the market system with its prior determinationsis generally efficient, even if efficiency pricesgive it at least one distinctive efficiency. Or that it is necessaryfor those freedoms of consumption and occupationthat seem most often prized. And I have feared its offensesagainst democracy. And at least expressed concerns aboutits impact on personality and culture.Our interest in recent chapters in attributes of the marketsystem like its efficiencies and inefficiencies or its consequencesfor freedom should not obscure its most fundamentalattributes discussed in the earlier chapters. Norshould the role of market system in planning do so. To recallthose attributes, let us suppose that we agree—as mostof us in fact do—in desiring to make some large room in ourlives for cooperation, whether to arrange a car pool or daycare for our children, build a house, or bring coffee fromColombia. Even if some of the desired cooperation requiresthe organizing hand of a central authority, we know thatmuch of it can be left to individual efforts coordinated bymutual adjustment. We know that people will find manyopportunities for cooperation that would never come to theattention of an authority, as well as many other opportunitiesthat they can efficiently and happily seize withoutengaging and empowering a governmental authority. The