Prices and knowledge: A market-process perspective

Notes 13316 An implication of this will be that decentralized bureaucracies are also targetsof the entrepreneurial criticisms of planning. For an argument in favour ofcentral planning that is largely based on an unawareness of both distinctionsmade here, see Wanless (1987:52–68).17 Coase (1937:388) also quotes D.H.Robertson’s description of firms in themarket as ‘islands of conscious power in this ocean of unconscious cooperation…’.18 See Hurwicz’s (1984:423–4) brief criticism.19 For a more recent paper adopting a similar approach, see Camacho andPersky (1988:367–80).20 Hayek (1973:49) describes this as ‘guiding the actions of individuals by rulerather than specific commands’.21 This distinction is also present when Coase (1937:387) says that ‘aneconomist thinks of the economic system as being co-ordinated by the pricemechanism and society becomes not an organisation but an organism’. For acriticism of the use of the term ‘organism’ for this purpose rather than‘spontaneous order’, see Hayek (1973:52–4).22 For Mises (1949:304–5) a ‘manager’ will have ‘entrepreneurialfunctions…assigned to him within a limited and precisely determined sphereof action’. For several comments of relevance to this section, see, in general,Mises (1949:303–8).23 The term ‘free’ here does not mean ‘costless’ or ‘equally costly to all’. Itmeans ‘the freedom of potential competitors to discover and to move toexploit’ perceived profit opportunities (Kirzner 1985a:142). See alsoArmentano (1982).6 Conclusions1 See, for example, Gilad (1981, 1982).2 This appears to be hinted at in Mises (1949:353).