ABSTRACT
In the last chapter I outlined the central epistemological argument for the freemarket: the free-market solves and a centrally planned economy fails to solve problems of ignorance. The price system resolves problems arising from the social division of knowledge by communicating between different actors that knowledge which is relevant to the coordination of their actions while allowing them to use their own local knowledge. At the same time it acts as a discovery procedure for uncovering what such future needs and wants will be. Just as conjectures about the physical world are tested and falsified by experiments, so conjectures about future human needs and wants are tested and falsified by competition in the market place. Businesses are the practical embodiment of economic conjectures and competition between businesses in the market parallels competition between conjectures in the sciences.
