ABSTRACT
No more was attempted, in the preceding chapter, than to give the reader a very general impression of the working of the private enterprise economy and to suggest to him that, under appropriate conditions, resources might come to be allocated efficiently, without deliberate government planning, merely through the pursuit of private gain. Let us now consider this allocative process in more detail, with the aim of identifying the conditions most favourable to its success. Our attention will be concentrated, in this and the following chapter, on the adjustment of the supply of an individual product to the demand for it.
