Markets
A way of coordinating exchange and economic decisions through voluntary buying and selling.
What the essays say
The capitalism essay credits markets with coordinating enormous numbers of decisions without anyone at the top, then asks which problems markets are especially good at solving and which need something else.
Markets are a way of coordinating exchange and economic decisions.
Millions of people can act on little pieces of information, experience, preference, and judgment that no central authority could ever fully possess.
Where people disagree
- Market advocates emphasize that prices carry information no planner could gather, which is why decentralized markets adapt well.
- Others point to market failures: pollution, monopolies, and goods like clean air that markets do not price well on their own.
- Philosophers also ask whether some things should not be for sale at all, even when a market for them could work.
