Design without a Designer

Economy

The free market economy is a prime example of a system which has a vast number of interconnections yet provides us with a rough balance of good and services that match our needs and desires.

It boggles the mind that millions of items, each with their own required supply channels and prospective customers, align to adequately stock our shelves and businesses. Just think of the millions of decisions that go on among companies and customers that result in the products we are offered. Also, these decisions would need to be based on an understanding of the linkage between the goods in one part of the supply chain with another.

Design without a designer. Invisible guidance in free markets
Invisible guidance in free markets

Our free market thorough the operation known as the invisible hand accomplishes this feat.

Central Plans

The difficulty can be assessed when we consider the failure of centrally planned economies. Soviet bureaucrats

Despite the hiccups and burps of the free market system operating through the principle known as the Invisible Hand, the price mechanism has much better solved the allocation of resources and provision of goods and services.

Regulations

Fair play in free markets requires that information—price, efficacy, quality, safety, comparison—must be available to customers, that includes corporate customers as well as final consumers. Because there is ample evidence that many corporations hide information that could hurt their sales, government regulations force accuracy, honesty, and completeness on corporate product claims. Agencies like FDA are needed to ensure such regulations are enforced.

Consistent rules are necessary to keep supply, demand, and prices near that full-informed consumers would demand and that would result, by the Invisible Hand, in best allocation of resources and manpower.

Design

Our very, complex economic system has a design without a designer.


Image of Adam Smith and Invisible Hand from Market Business News

Invisible Hand, sums up individual actions to best pricing and allocation
Design without Designer
Fallacy of Composition, individual actions can lose their advantage
Good for One
Invisible Hand’s Scar

Economics Government Science

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You May Have Missed