Reinventing the Bazaar Chapter 1

1.     McMillan says that the defining characteristic that make up a market is "something exists if there are people who want to buy it and people who want to sell it" (pg 5).  Another defining characteristic to a market is autonomy.  People participate voluntarily as separate entities.  This gives the participants free reign to decided if they want to buy or sell a product.  This also means that "no one is in charge of a market - or, rather, everyone is in charge" (pg 7).  As I will note in question 3, this does not mean that there are no rules involved in a market.  The rules are in place to keep the market running smoothly so that participants can continue to have their autonomy.  Autonomy is important because people want to feel like they are in charge of what they are buying and selling.

2.     I have observed both opinions when it comes to markets.  When an industry is failing people tend to blame the market for the failure. On the other hand, if an industry is thriving people are more willing to buy from that market.  People might distrust a market if that market is causing distress to people such as poverty due to the loss of jobs.  People might start to distrust non-market action because markets give people power and putting their trust into other people takes that power they had away.  I don't think I personally know enough about markets and how they work to pick a side in this debate.  From what I can tell peoples views of the market are always changing because the market is always changing.  With this in mind I don't think that I can take only one side.

3.     As stated earlier "a market works well only if information flows smoothly through it" (pg 10).  For this to happen rules have to be defined.  An important rule is trust.  Participants need to feel safe about their purchases in order for them to keep coming back.  They need to trust that the products they are purchasing are going to be there in a reasonable amount of time and in a good condition.  Another rule that is important is competition.  Competition between sellers keep products at reasonable prices for buyers as long as there are enough products to go around.  This competition is also beneficial to the seller because they have autonomy to set their prices to compete with other sellers in their market.