Author: Curt Doolittle

HOW DOES ONE DEFINE THE MARKET (NOT ‘A’ MARKET)?

As far as I know the central distinguishing property of the market is incomprehensibility, such that prices form the only available signals.

Every alternative that I know of constitutes mere trade, not a market.

If it isn’t anonymous and complex enough for prices to serve as the only instrument of perception then it doesn’t qualify as a market sufficiently to distinguish the necessary properties of a market from the properties of non market.

A slave market is indeed a market. It is a market for immoral goods, just like a black market is a market for regulated goods. The morality of the goods and services is immaterial. The only necessary properties of a market are necessary ignorance and therefore a dependence upon prices.

There are many analogies to a market, most common of which is status signals, mates, information, political influence and favors.

But the distinguishing features of those analogies to the market is that they are mere trade. Not anonymous speculation based upon prices.

–“would you say that a local farmer’s market (let’s say kind of a mid-size one, with maybe a few dozen vendors at most) is characterized by the kind of anonymous speculation or epistemic incomprehensibility that you take to be characteristic?”–

If we describe a hierarchy:

1) The anonymous price market.

2) The speculative production market

3) The opportunistic production market.

4) An out group barter market.

5) An in group barter market,

6) An in group altruistic market,

Trade is conducted in each of them. The problem is, when we use the term ‘market’, each of these markets consist of different necessary properties that distinguishes it from the next.

So, yes, I would categorize it as a market but, I not would classify it as an anonymous and speculative market.

And this is an important difference in properties for obvious reasons.

So I am a little cautious of reductio ad absurdum definitions – particularly those that fit ideological biases that matt seems to be attempting to steer clear of.

Or conversely, if we fail to tie market to prices and prices to sufficient information, then I think the consequential deductions invalidate our definition of a market.

As another series:

I can expend on my children.

I can trade affection on speculation of future care.

I can exchange with friends and neighbors to balance my inventory.

I can make something for you for a fee.

I can sell my surplus to friends and neighbors and travelers.

I can produce entirely on speculation for those that I don’t know.

I can buy product from producers on speculation of selling.

… etc.

As such, what axis does this series represent? What increases with complexity? What decreases with complexity?

I have less and less information to work with, and become more and more reliant on prices.