======================= HES POSTING ================= 
 
Reply to Pat Gunning 
 
Pat: I said: 
'I do disagree with the idea that the market was consciously 
constructed and imposed' 
 
You objected on the grounds that the market is the result of conscious 
actions by people trading on the market, etc. (if I understand you 
right). 
 
Of course you are right. (Almost) all human action is deliberate and 
purposive. 
 
I was, however, replying (without saying so - my fault) to John Adams 
who had said : 
'the market system was consciously, ideologically, and politically 
constructed' and 'The self-regulating market system was an artificial 
creation'. 
 
In other words, I was objecting to the idea that the market *as a 
system* was planned and imposed on people. It wasn't. I'll qualify that 
quickly - there may be cases where the obligation, say, to pay rents in 
money obliged people to enter the market when they would not otherwise 
have done so. But taken as a whole, the emergence of a system in which 
markets were much more important than they had been before was not 
something imposed by anyone. It was the unintended result of individual 
decisions which had no grand aim in mind. 
 
I can't resist quoting Smith: 
A revolution of the greatest importance to the public happiness was in 
this manner brought about by two different orders of people who had not 
the least intention to serve the public. To gratify the most childish 
vanity was the sole motive of the great proprietors. The merchants and 
artificers, much less ridiculous, acted merely from a view to their own 
interest, and in pursuit of their own pedlar principle of turning a 
penny wherever a penny was to be got. Neither of them had either 
knowledge or foresight of that great revolution which the folly of the 
one, and the industry of the other, was gradually bringing about. (WN 
III.iv.17) 
 
The 'great revolution' is, essentially, the replacement of feudal 
particularism with a modern 'commercial' society. 
 
Hope this clears up the misunderstanding. 
Tony 
---------------------- 
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) 
University of Bristol, Department of Economics 
8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, England 
Phone (+44/0)117 928 8428 
Fax (+44/0)117 928 8577 
 
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]