Most economists in the United States seem excited by the spell of the free market. Consequ
Moreover, those economists who argue that allowing the free market to operate without interference is the most efficient method of establishing prices have not considered the economies of non-socialist countries other than the United States. These economies employ intentional price-fixing, usually in an overt fashion. Formal price-fixing by cartel and informal price-fixing by agreements covering the members of an industry are commonplace. Were there something peculiarly efficient about the free market and inefficient about price-fixing, the countries that have avoided the first and used the second would have suffered drastically in their economic development. There is no indication that they have.
Socialist industry also works within a framework of controlled prices. In the early 1970's, the Soviet Union began to give firms and industries some of the flexibility in adjusting prices that a more informal evolution has accorded the capitalist system. Economists in the Unites States have hailed the change as a return to the free market. But Soviet firms are no more subject to prices established by a free market over which they exercise little influence than are capitalist firms; rather, Soviet firms have been given the power to fix prices.
Notes: spell 魔力; 一阵。aggregate 总体。
The primary purpose of the text is to _____.
A.refute the theory that the free market plays a useful role in the development of industrialized societies.
B.argue that price-fixing, in one form. or another, is an inevitable part of and benefit to the economy of any industrialized society.
C.show that in industrialized societies price-fixing and the operation of the free market are not only compatible but also mutually beneficial.
D.explain the various ways in which industrialized societies can fix prices in order to stabilize the free market.