V. Smith Sentences

At the heart of economics is a scientific mystery: How is it that the pricing system accomplishes the world’s work without anyone being in charge? . . . None of us could have invented it, and its operation depends in no way on anyone’s comprehension or understanding of it . . . The pricing system—how is order produced from freedom of choice?—is a scientific mystery as deep, fundamental and inspiring as that of the expanding universe or the forces that bind matter.

From “Microeconomic systems as an experimental science.” American Economic Review, Vol. 72, No. 4 (1982): 923-955.