Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

276 Thinking About Choicesbedrock case for the market system rests on the merits ofmutual adjustment as a fundamental social coordinatingprocess.Sometimes in mutual adjustment we will enter into cooperation—joina neighbor in repairing a fence—because aproject is pleasurable in itself. Sometimes we can arrangemutually adjusting cooperation by no greater effort thanpersuasion: “Can you give me a hand with this—I can’tquite manage it by myself.” But usually more is required.We need some stronger method of influencing others, especiallyin lasting mutual adjustment, in order to obtain theircooperation, whether it is a performance or an object wewant. Most of us agree that threats of violence, physicalforce, and other compulsions have to be forbidden as a generalrule. What then is left? Only one rule or procedure:each person can induce desired assistance from others bymaking contingent offers of benefits to them. A simple,great, and fundamental rule of social coordination.I cannot imagine any reason for generally forbidding voluntarymutual adjustments of this kind nor any reason notto expect great gains to follow from them. The benefits are,as we have seen, enormously enlarged when money andcredit appear, together with entrepreneurs. Thus the mostbasic argument for the market system is established. If individuals,families, and other groups are to enjoy a great arrayof noncoerced opportunities for taking initiatives to arrangecooperation, they need a market system.The categorical case against the market system, then, isdead. A society without any market system at all is notworth considering for our futures. Lying beyond this generalclaim for the market are the many particular claims wehave surveyed, some powerful, all to be matched against defectswe have surveyed. The particular claims and alleged