Mixing voluntary action versus coerced action is a category error

From Government is Largely Guesswork by Donald J. Boudreaux

Of course, any desired outcome can, in principle, be pursued either with voluntary action (the market, broadly conceived) or with coercive action (government). In this simple way the market and government are indeed symmetrical to each other. But there the symmetry ends. The logic of the market’s operation differs categorically from the logic of government’s operation. These differences are rooted in, but extend beyond, the fact that only in markets is all action voluntary.

The single most important difference separating market action from government action is this: Unlike decision-makers in government, decision-makers in markets have access to detailed and reasonably reliable information about the net effects that any of their decisions are likely to have on all affected parties. In addition, decision-makers in markets also are uniquely incited to take those actions, and only those actions, that produce the largest possible positive net effects on affected parties.

The fact that the information available in markets is imperfect is indisputable. Also indisputable is the fact that even well-informed market actors often err. But equally indisputable, if not as widely recognized, is the reality that markets have (as an essential feature of their operation) a built-in process for detecting and correcting error, and thus taking into account over time as much relevant knowledge as possible. No such process exists in government. Because of this categorical difference, any supposed substantive symmetry between market action and government action is imaginary.

The foundational (if not the only) advantage of relying upon markets rather than upon government to supply, say, shoes is that only in markets is there a reliable source of information about which varieties of shoes to produce and how to produce these varieties efficiently – that is, how to produce these varieties of shoes in ways that leave as many resources as possible available for the production of goods and services other than shoes.