Market Signals

A state that does not plan does not, by default turn this function over to the market.  Even if the market is perfectly efficient, it still suffers from two ineradicable defects.  The first relates to the distribution of income and power: the market conveys signals only in relation to the purchasing power of the individuals transmitting them.  The poor do not matter to the market.  The second relates to representation: people not yet born do not turn up at the stores.  They send no market signals at all.

-- James K. Galbraith (1952 -), American economist who writes frequently for the popular press on economic topics, The Predatory State (2008) p. 116