Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

86 How It Worksone’s mind of the idea that there exists a defined set ofhuman activities, such as go by the name of economic, towhich the market system is limited. The scope of the marketsystem is far broader than such an idea suggests. Andthat is why, back in Chapter 2, I sounded the note: think society,not economy.A common set of distinctions sets economy againstpolity and contrasts both of them with society. I find thisthreefold distinction more often obstructive than useful.For one thing, the polity—the political system—is thedominant participant in the market system, as a rule makerand as a price maker (buyer and seller). Whatever “economy”might turn out to mean, polity and economy arefused. As for a distinction between economy and society,the latter consists of many processes by which a mere aggregateof people is coordinated into an interacting peoplecurbing injury to each other and cooperating. But that isprecisely what market systems broadly—both nationallyand globally—accomplish: coordination for social peaceand cooperation. For our purposes, we do not need the tripartitedistinction. Again, the scope of the market system isfar broader than it is often said to be.Let’s get rid of some further misconceptions on scope. Afrequent opinion is that the market system’s scope is the organizationor coordination of a society’s material or materialisticpursuits. Some people incorrectly take this to meanthe pursuit of objects—things that have weight and volume.Market domain is much broader than that. In advancedindustrial systems, commodities—that is, objectsor things—account for fewer market sales than do services—thatis, performances rather than objects, rangingfrom concerts to repairs.Even when people buy a material object, they do so in