Chapter 1 of Reinventing the Bazaar by John McMillan

John McMillan tries to describe the government in his book Reinventing the Bazaar: A Natural History of Markets. He dissuades the notion that the economy is driven by magical unknown forces, and instead by people and different rules both explicit and implicit. McMillan states that "Decision-making autonomy is key," when describing the market (McMillan 2002). By this he means that the most important aspect of a market is the ability to freely make decisions. This allows for market transactions to occur as well as help to maintain a healthy trade.
An important thing that McMillan notes in his book is that, "Markets provoke clashing opinions. Some people revile them as the source of exploitation and poverty. Others extol them as the font of liberty and prosperity," (McMillan 2002). This statement points out how their are inevitable differing opinions of how the market should or shouldn't work. This is apparent in today's market with the political system that we have in the US. It is clear in most cases that the democratic party advocates for more government control while the republic party does the opposite. This idea of distrusting the government and their intervention in the market is born from fears of a communist society or an all-powerful dictatorship. I feel that these fears are unwarranted in that the government needs to intervene in the market in some ways or else there would be anarchy.
McMillan's analogy of comparing the market to football is brilliant. The lawless market with no rules being compared to folk football shows how when there are no rules anything can go and can result in dire consequences. A modern market governed by rules however, is much like the modern american football which has become a huge part of the culture in this nation. This proves that there is a need for some rules in the market in order for it to be truly prosperous. Rules such as minimum wage and child-protection laws allow for workers to not be taken advantage of and rules set against monopolies help to keep free decision making available by preventing there from being only one option.