======================= 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]