dis or un organization? Markets are ALWAYS organized

Occasionally academics, business people, planners and policy makers assume Markets are unorganized and disorderly.  These assumptions are rooted in prevailing theories of human behavior, for instance if business is organized then street business is not; or in ideas of what legitimate business is, for instance the only activity which counts as business is that activity which is taught in business schools and involves a variety of other practices (accounting, etc); or in ideas of planning and policy wherein the largest economic activities, the most remunerative, easily measured, and regulated are those most desirable.   But these assumptions are fatally flawed and measure human activity by rules and regulations instead of establishing desirable rules by human needs and aspirations.  

The fatal flaw in these assumptions is the “truth” of the logic of if/then statement.  If storefront business is orderly, organized, recognized by other social institutions like business schools; sought and even de-regulated by planners and policy makers then street markets, absent from these connections and assumptions must not be organized.  But of course street business is organized and of course, like all human activities, it is regulated, and the truth of this is obvious when we consider the vast variety of family forms that exist.  Families are not unorganized, rather we might say, that like street markets, families are disorganized!  There are numerous family forms and even more numerous ways by which families organize their lives and though we may not recognize the form or organization from our perspective the fact that some form/organization exists is testament to the existence of that form/organization.  

So street markets are organized, but recognizing that organization requires two moves, first, a willingness to suspend one’s assumptions about “legitimate” organization and second, the desire to understand the principles organizing some market in some particular place.  Chaos it may seem, but there is always some order(s) producing the activity we observe. In brief, markets are often, and purposefully, unorganized, with several organizing principles operating at the same time.  Planners, policy makers, business people and academics would do well to understand these organizational principles, synthesize how they come together and work, and recognize that for more than a millennium markets have operated in uniquely distinct ways from other commercial and social activity, and for good reasons.  More about that in a later note.