ABSTRACT
Much has been written since the late 1970s about growing rigidities in factor markets, as well as other effects of the visible hand of government on the efficiency of the market system, the dearth of risk-bearing, etc. Issues have not only been studied in increasing detail but conclusions stemming from them have been persuasively presented in defence of the impaired market system (see, e.g. Balassa, Giersch, Kindleberger, Lindbeck, Lundberg, Lord McFadzean, Walbroeck to mention but a few). Adding to their penetrative criticism would be both superfluous and difficult. Consequently, what follows is not a systematic and balanced (even if sketchy) survey but some highly selective reflections from another vantage point, from which certain issues seem to weigh more heavily upon the efficiency of the market system than has usually been assumed by critics of the post-war etatist and colleetivist trends in the West. If certain causes or symptoms are omitted or barely mentioned, it is not intended to imply that they are unimportant or even less important. It simply means that there is no divergence in these respects between the weights usually ascribed to their importance and the weights ascribed by the present writer.
