This Townhall.com column by Walter Williams illustrates a very important point about markets: they are not things, they are not places, they are not individual people. Markets are the interaction of our choices and decisions, based on our private, local knowledge.
What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences. When you hear someone say that he doesn’t trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he’s really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.
Now you see why I call this site the Knowledge Problem.