Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Enterprise and Corporation 75and sometimes overwhelming constraint on some marketelitepowers. But it is a wholly inadequate constraint onothers. Popular control of market elites is on several pointsstronger than popular control over governmental elites, althoughthe latter is itself far from ideal.Islands of Command in a Market SeaElite and mass power aside, the place in the market systemof the collective enterprise, especially the large corporation,is not quite what it is often taken to be. For that reason it isall the more interesting to examine further. A common understandingis that the enterprise, especially the corporateenterprise, is the key institution of the market system, indeedthe quintessence of it. While not at all challengingthat interpretation, I would, however, point out that it isalso internally a nonmarket or even antimarket institution,though lodged within a market system. It is a way of achievingcoordination of some activities through managerialcommand rather than through market interactions. To thatextent—and it is a great extent—corporate coordination isa rival to rather than an instrument of market-system coordination.Think of a clothing enterprise in need of a variety of colorsfor the cloth it uses. It might arrange to buy already dyedcloth from various suppliers. Or it might buy cloth and thenturn it over to dyers who on contract color it in their ownenterprises. Or it might opt for a cheaper, faster, or morecontrollable process if it were to organize the dyeing underits own managerial supervision. If it chooses to dye its owncloth, it has displaced the market system for coordinationof the dyeing process and in its place has carved out a smallarena for coordination under its own authority. It has cre-