Prices and knowledge: A market-process perspective

88 Prices and knowledgepoint that ‘the whole of a static complex production process couldconceivably be surveyed “from beginning to end” because the timeand effort necessary for the survey would not render the gatheredinformation obsolete’. However, it is doubtful that, without aframework stimulating entrepreneurship, time and effort would leadto the discovery of much knowledge. Similarly, at another pointLavoie says, when referring to market economies, thatthe sheer number of persons whose productive activity has to bemutually coordinated grows until it includes most of the world’spopulation. Simultaneously, the complexity and variability of thisproductive activity increases even more dramatically. Whereas it hadbeen possible within traditional society to achieve a more or lesscomplete coordination of actions of members of the community intheir production activities according to one established technology,in the Market this becomes quite impossible.(Lavoie 1985b:37)The idea that a high degree of co-ordination can be reached more orless completely in a ‘traditional’ society 40 raises the followingquestion: to what extent is such a statement consistent with a marketprocessapproach that insists that the world be viewed indisequilibrium terms? Surely the claim is not that it is only ‘theMarket’ that operates in disequilibrium conditions? Rather, the pointis that it is markets that overcome to the largest extent the ignorancethat is the cause of disequilibrium. This apparent inconsistency maybe due to some ambiguity in the term ‘co-ordination’. Because anattempt at its clarification sheds additional light on the distinctionbetween types of ignorance, a brief digression follows.The meaning of co-ordinationThe term ‘co-ordination’ is used, particularly by modern marketprocesseconomists, as a substitute for the term ‘equilibrium’, to referto the co-ordination of individual plans and actions. 41 But there issome ambiguity in its use that may lead to confusion. To overcome it,a distinction will be made between ‘co-ordination of knowledge’ and‘co-ordination of actions’.The notion of co-ordination of actions seems quite clear. In thecase of, say, a centrally planned, hierarchical organization such as