Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

58 How It Worksare otherwise possible. Thus, the construction of your housemade use of electric power and materials that could havebeen provided only by a collective like Morgan BuildingMaterials with capacities beyond those of an individualmarket participant. The familiar dominant legal form ofthese collectives in our time is the corporation, odd as itmay seem to call the corporation a collective.These, then, are the bones of the market system: liberty,property, the quid pro quo, money, activity for sale, intermediaries,entrepreneurs, and collectives. Again the marketdance waits for the state to provide the floor and the orchestra.Even the ordinary market participant counts on thestate for safety on the way to the supermarket, but the dependenceof entrepreneurs on state aid might be called desperate.Their initiatives put them at high risk of great loss;hence, as noted, they will move only timidly or not at allwithout a variety of state aids.The “Chaos” of the Market?When we reflect on the millions of people who cooperate todeliver a cup of coffee from Colombia to Milan or on theclaim that no institution, not even the state, matches themarket in capacity to organize cooperation, we might wonderwhy we still hear from time to time the phrase “thechaos of the market.” Chaos it is not. What might peoplemean by such a charge? To some people it means only thatmarkets often look chaotic. An early morning wholesaleproduce market looks messy. Trading in many stock exchanges—aturbulence of gestures and cries—sometimeslooks more like a street demonstration than an organized