Love Capitalism, Hate Markets

Bluematter asks why is it that people hate the market? He observes that

The implications of the public's mistrust of markets are profound. Simply put, it's the resource allocation equivalent of having invented the chainsaw and insisting on using your nails to cut down trees. What can be done to change public perceptions of markets?

He suspects that the answer is an ethical one: a perceived conflict between social values that emphasise altruism, selflessness and cooperation with that of the market which people associate with selfishness, deception and conflict.

In the world at large he may to something, but I don't think this ethical argument explains mistrust of the market that you can observe in a corporate environment.

At BigRedCo nothing is priced and all resources are rationed from stationery to headcount to access to IT developers. But this certainly isn't for ethical reasons: it's for reasons of control. The senior management simply don't believe that a market system - or indeed any other system would work.

As Samizdata observes - managers may wear smart suits and talk the language of capitalism, but they don't walk the talk.

In BigRedCo the story is - the honest belief is - that investment resources are granted to projects with a good business case, and a lot of Business Plans are completed and ROIs are calculated.

But the fact of the matter is that resources are limited and allocation is by central directive. After all if just anyone could buy new IT systems just because they could afford it, why where would it stop?