The Case of the Bulletin Board; G. Bleil

FAITH, like success, thrives on those real experiences which con firm and reinforce the belief. As an instructor of Economics to an evening adult class, I have con stantly sought examples to confirm my faith in the free market - ex amples in which the students could participate. The ordinary bulletin board provided an almost perfect study of a free market contrasted with a controlled market. Most of the supermarkets in ,this part of the world (California) and I suppose almost everywhere - have bulletin boards for the con venience of their shoppers. Here, willing buyers and willing sellers meet in a unique market place. My Mr. Bleil is a San Francisco banker, via the University of Maryland with his M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Southern California. wife and I have sold a boat, bought a cat, rented a garage, and located domestic help in this market. Most of my students had similar experi ences, and all of them admitted to habitual shopping at the bulletin board market. We concluded that the bulletin boards were interest ing, convenient, and effective.

None of us had ever seen an offen si ve word or an impropriety of any kind. The sellers were often ingenious and imaginative in at tracting attention, and somehow they managed to restore their mes sages if they were covered over by newer ones. Mysteriously, the notices disappeared when the sales were consummated. (When I went to rent the garage, I took the no tice with me!) This seemed to me to be an ex24 THE FREEMAN January ample of a really free market in operation - and I wondered how free it had to be to function. Some inquiry revealed that indeed a few of the stores required the man ager's approval for posting, or dating, so that old notices could be cleaned off periodically; but, by and large, rules as such were casual, flexible, and devoted to some nebulous standard of pro priety, imprecise as it might be. It is clear that whatever rules of conduct were imposed on the par ticipants, they were not so onerous as to restrict the market, but were practical enough to enhance its functioning.

Shortly after I had come to ap precia te this unusual bulletin board market place, the company for which I work - and for which about one-half of my students worked - installed a bulletin board at one of the entrances to our cafe teria. An ideal spot, one would conclude, as hundreds of prospects flow past the point daily. How ever, after several months it was still virtually unused. At the close of class one evening, I asked the students to figure out - as home work - and report why the com pany bulletin board had not suc ceeded. The students found the answer in the 0 jJicial Rules of the Bulle tin Board, conspicuously posted and appropriately signed by "an authority." "This bulletin board," it said, "is for your convenience. All notices will be submitted to Department X for approval." Spe cial cards had been printed and Department X prepared all entries so they would be "uniform" and "proper."

Benevolent control of the mar ket place had imposed so much au thority on it that it ceased to function. It lost its appeal as a free market and was not able to attract willing sellers and willing buyers. The class had made an impor tant discovery. The Controller of the Bulletin Board was apparently less successful in discerning the reason for the failure of his mar ket place, for a few weeks later another bulletin board was in stalled· at the other entrance to the cafeteria. It, too, carries the "Rules" - and has been no more successful than the first. I have wondered about the width of the line that divides an absolutely free market place with out any rules from the point where the market essentially ceases to function. When does con trol become stifling? The answer, of course, does not exist. But ~~hen I see a bulletin board, I am reminded of the hazards of con trol, however well-intended they might be. My faith remains with the free market. ~ W. A. PATON No, this piece doesn't deal with the High Cost of Living, at least not directly. I am concerned here \vith a less familiar and important HCl, hydrochloric acid.