>andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
>> I am a Hayekian. Hayek's idea was that markets are
>> information systems, not straw-bosses. The point is
>> that people cannot know enough if they have to plan
>> how many buttons and how much broccoli they will
>need
>> -- but mnarkets give people who are interested in
>> making profits spedcial incentives to find out
>without
>> central coordination. No planning board can do as
>well
>> outside certain areas where supply and demand is
>> highly predictable.
>
>I'm still a little puzzled why a Hayekian would want
>to resort to markets given our current state of
>technology and organization.
And also given the evidence from financial markets that there's lots & lots of noise in market prices - they systematically overshoot, and reflect mob psychology, not the kind of dispassionate information that The Market's publicists tout. What have we learned from all the movements of oil prices, from under $10 to over $50, over the last 20 years? Excessively low prices discouraged both exploration and R&D for a post-oil future; excessively high prices create recessions without encouraging much long-term planning.
Doug