The Doctrine of Market Failure

In the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, socialist and other critics of capitalism condemned it chiefly on two grounds. First, that it was unjust and exploitative. Secondly, that it was unstable, prone to crises and doomed to collapse. Rarely if ever, was capitalism criticized on the ground that its quintessential mechanism of market forces operating through the price system fails to work. This third line of criticism, which may be called the doctrine of market failure, was developed, chiefly in Britain, in the 1930s and 1940s, though traces of it can of course be found earlier in many places.

Socialist critics of capitalism condemn it on the grounds that it

Item 3 - is destined to a tragic fate,