Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

42 How It Worksthink that some values—resource conservation, for example—areneglected in the coordination achieved. Nevertheless,I think that no one can deny that specific assignmentsfor countless participants are coordinated to bring coffee toa Milan cafe or shoes to people all over the world. Questionsabout the quality of the coordination can wait.All the cooperation described requires a great deal ofhelp from the state. The state establishes liberties, propertyrights, and obligations of contract without which peoplecannot buy and sell. It makes great efforts, not alwayshighly successful, to curb hijacking and pirating. It buildsdocks, canals, highways, and railroads. It maintains a monetarysystem, hence it is drawn into the regulation of banksand the issuing of credit. To encourage enterprises not to allowrisk to sap their energies, it often promises to sharelosses if they occur. It also commonly offers businesses theprivilege of declaring bankruptcy to escape creditors. Itsends armies abroad to open up markets. It joins with otherstates, as in the World Trade Organization, to establish andadminister rules for international trade. The prospect ofsales might be thought to be a sufficient inducement to energizemarket activity, but no market system can survivewithout governmental aid. And governments offer aid notmerely to keep the market system alive but to stimulategrowth. If the market system is a dance, the state providesthe dance floor and the orchestra.The state is in constant attendance on the market system,as can be seen in any nation’s frequent moves to copewith ever-changing situations. To deal with the Asian financialdisturbances of the late 1990s, the government ofTaiwan floated the currency and imposed restrictions on acquisitionof foreign exchange by Taiwanese businesses. It