Reflection post

The idea of market self-regulation assumes that individual choices naturally create order. But in reality, coordination breaks down: information is uneven, incentives get distorted, and externalities spill over without being priced in. The market doesn’t see everything — and those blind spots create failures.

When individual decisions generate costs or benefits that don’t fall on the decision‑maker, the system stops being self-correcting. Pollution, bubbles, underinvestment in infrastructure — these aren’t exceptions but structural limits. The “hand” doesn’t disappear, but its reach is far more limited than the theory suggests.