Competitive Capitalism as a System of Auto-control

Abstract

It occurs to me that one of the most illuminating ways of regarding the economic system is to see it as an elaborate set of auto-controls. Many complex machines have sub-system controls to ensure satisfactory functioning. One has only to consider the human body: thus the bloodstream is regulated homeostatically as to pressure, temperature and constituents, under extreme variations of ‘load’ conditions. Such auto-control has been a central theme of most economic analysis since Adam Smith: it is the doctrine of laissez-faire that there are available non-conscious controls in most parts of the economy which will function better than conscious controls. Such doctrines are in fact too simplistic and their function is capitalist apologetics. Such subsystem controls can easily exhibit various forms of dysfunction, e.g. Parkinson’s disease, or stocks cycles.