Free Markets (6) - Offers or Orders

Offers are not limited to markets. Offers are every where. We make offers all the time.

• Do you want to join us for a drink after work?
• Do you want chicken for dinner?
• Would you like to marry me?
• Will you marry me?

Most offers are made to family, friends and family. The advantage of a market is that people can make offers to a broader range of people.

We are free to refuse and offer. The opposite of an offer is an order. We are not supposed to reject and order.

• Clean up that!
• Quick march!
• Type that document again!
• Stop at the lights!

Orders are appropriate in some situations, but we prefer offers to orders. People wanting to regulate markets are trying to replace offers with orders.

Free Markets (3) - Public Offers

A market is a place where people can display and record offers. Putting a whole lot of offers together in once place simplifies life for potential buyers. They can look at all the offers and choose the one that is best for them.

In a few markets, buyers and sellers can make an offer. In stock exchange and other financial markets, both buys and sellers can make offers. A trade is completed when buyer and seller agree on a price. Electronic trading allows a broad range of offers by buyers and sellers to be observed by a large number of observers.

A buyer can go into a car yard and make an offer for a car.

I will only give you a thousand dollars for that heap of junk.

In most markets, only the sellers can make offers and the buyers just accept or reject them. In a shopping mall, offers are made by displaying the good for sale and attaching a sticky label that records the price the vendor is willing to accept. The buyer assesses the quality of the goods by observing them.

In a farmers market, produce being offered is put on display and the price that will be accepted is displayed. Buyers can accept or reject the offers.

Offers make a market. If all offers to buy and sell disappear, a market becomes an empty shell.