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5. Markets and prices.

Perhaps the most basic feature of the market economy is the use of the price mechanism for allocating resources to various uses. The price system is an elaborate system of communications in which innumerable free choices are aggregated and balanced against each other. The decisions of producers determine the supply of a commodity; the decisions of buyers determine the price. Changes in demand and supply cause changes in market prices and it is these movements in market prices which bring about the changes in the way in which society uses its economic resources.