At Sat, 05 Nov 2005 12:49:46 -0500, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote: > 4. Because market-based mechanisms rely on global communication, they > constitute a global communication channel.
Can you clarify this a bit more. How do market-based mechanisms rely on global communication? My understanding of the power of markets is that they are useful becuase they precisely don't require global communication to find acceptable solutions. Scott H. Clearwater states in the introduction to "Market-Based Control: A Paradigm for Distributed Resource Allocation:" A very abstract definition of a market is a system with locally interacting components that achieve some overall coherent global behavior. The fascinating aspect of a market is that through the simple interactions of trading, i.e. buying and selling, among individual agents a desirable global effect can be achieved, such as stable prices or fair allocation or[sic] resources. . . . Their ability to facilitate resource allocation with very little information, i.e. price, makes them an attractive solution for many complex problems (v). Thanks, Neal _______________________________________________ L4-hurd mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/l4-hurd
