Читать книгу Market Theory and the Price System - Israel M. Kirzner - Страница 27

We have seen that a market system may be divided by the theorist into more or less distinct areas of activity where market forces bring about adjustments with especial speed and directness. In considering the particular course of economic forces within such a distinct area of activity, the area is referred to as a “market”—in the same way as the economy as a whole is called a market (when we are interested in the ripples of economic forces as felt throughout the system). The simplest form of market where the forces set up by human action can be analyzed is that marked out by considering only the activities of those buying and selling the same good or service.

We speak—and will be doing so frequently in this book—of a market for shoes, wheat, a particular kind of labor, and so on. We bear in mind at all times that any equilibrium achieved in such a market may be quite incomplete from the standpoint of the entire market system. It is the especial directness with which changes in the data in one part of such a market make their impact on actions through this market that justifies our undertaking this kind of separate analysis.

In the actions taking place in the market for any one commodity, such as wheat, there is always, we find, the same market process at work. In any such market there is a general tendency on the part of potential buyers and sellers to continually revise their bids and offers, until all bids and offers are successfully accepted in the market. This general tendency expresses itself in three specific ways. First, so long as there is a discrepancy in the prices offered by different would-be buyers, or in the prices asked by different would-be sellers, there will be disappointments and subsequent revisions in bids or offers.⁸ Second, so long as the quantity of the commodity offered for sale at any one price (or below it) exceeds the quantity that prospective buyers are prepared to buy at this price (or above it), some of the would-be sellers will be disappointed and will be induced to revise their offers. Third, so long as the quantity of the commodity offered for sale at any one price (or below it) falls short of the quantity that prospective buyers are prepared to buy at this price (or above it), some of the would-be buyers will be disappointed and will be induced to revise their bids.

Thus, the agitation of the market proceeds under the impulse of very definite market forces. Prices offered and bid would be continually changing—even with constancy assumed in the basic production and consumption attitudes of the market participants—as would-be buyers or sellers find themselves forced to offer more attractive terms to the market. A would-be buyer might offer a higher price than before because his previous offer did not fit in with the plans of any prospective seller. Apparently all sellers aware of this previous offer found more attractive alternative ways of disposing of their commodities. A seller would be forced to lower his price because buyers found more attractive uses for their money—either elsewhere in this market, or in some other market altogether.

The general direction toward which agitation in the market is tending should be clear. If unlimited time were allowed for a market to reach its own equilibrium position—that is, if we assumed no change to occur indefinitely either in consumer valuation of the commodity or in producers’ assessment of the difficulty of its production—it is easy to imagine what would finally emerge. There would be a single price prevailing in the market; all sales would be effected at this price. Individuals would offer to sell the commodity at this price, and the quantity that they offer for sale would be exactly sufficient to satisfy those other individuals who are offering to buy the commodity at the prevailing price. No would-be buyer is disappointed in his plans to buy, and no would-be seller in his plans to sell.⁹