When people talk about a “market economy”, what exactly does that mean? You might assume it means a society where all or most economic decisions are made through markets. But this does not describe our own economy, or anything else that gets called a “market economy”. Most economic decisions are made inside particular organizations, which make their internal decisions according to hierarchical structures and individual judgment, taking markets into account as one factor among many. If two workers both want to avoid a Monday morning shift, or two department heads are arguing over hiring policy, or two engineers are debating which design to adopt, no one expects the people involved to start setting prices and bidding against each other like they would in a market. And yet markets are nevertheless crucial to our economic organization, in ways that are notably different from non-“market economies”. How, then, does the market fit in?
Markets Are Thin
Markets Are Thin
Markets Are Thin
When people talk about a “market economy”, what exactly does that mean? You might assume it means a society where all or most economic decisions are made through markets. But this does not describe our own economy, or anything else that gets called a “market economy”. Most economic decisions are made inside particular organizations, which make their internal decisions according to hierarchical structures and individual judgment, taking markets into account as one factor among many. If two workers both want to avoid a Monday morning shift, or two department heads are arguing over hiring policy, or two engineers are debating which design to adopt, no one expects the people involved to start setting prices and bidding against each other like they would in a market. And yet markets are nevertheless crucial to our economic organization, in ways that are notably different from non-“market economies”. How, then, does the market fit in?