Innis

The prices that coordinate a market are facts dispersed across millions of minds. Local knowledge held in particular people in particular places, knowledge of this supplier, this customer, this route, this season, that cannot be gathered into any central location without being destroyed in the gathering. The planner who believes he has captured the relevant information has not captured it. The facts that matter are exactly the ones that will not fit in his ledger. He will act on the ledger anyway. That is what ledgers do to the people who build them. They make the holder feel he knows what he does not know, and then the holder acts.