Throughout history every society has faced the fundamental economic problem of deciding what to produce, and for whom, in a world of limited resources. At the end of the 20th century, it is clear that, for people throughout the world, the central, command economy model has failed to sustain economic growth, to achieve a measure of prosperity, or even to provide economic security for its citizens. In part, this is because the market economy is not an ideology but a set of time-tested practices and institutions about how individuals and societies can live and prosper economically.
Market economies are, by their very nature, decentralized, flexible, practical and changeable.
The central fact about market economies is that there is no center. It is this assertion of freedom, of risk and opportunity, that joins together modern market economies and political democracy.