Market

A system for coordinating exchange through prices — where buyers and sellers interact to allocate resources without central direction.

Markets are the paradigmatic example of spontaneous order: no one designs prices, yet they emerge to coordinate millions of decisions. Price signals transmit distributed information about scarcity and preferences.

Systems Connection

A market is a system whose components (buyers and sellers) interact through interfaces (transactions) with flows of goods and money. Prices encode state information. Feedback loops operate through supply and demand: high prices attract supply and reduce demand until equilibrium emerges.

Key Properties

• Price discovery — emergent information aggregation
• Allocation — resources flow to highest-valued uses
• Incentive alignment — profit motive coordinates behavior

See Also

• Political Economy — parent domain
• Spontaneous Order — markets as example
• Property Rights — what markets exchange
• Institution — markets require institutional support