Pitfalls of nonmarket self-organization

The purpose of the paper is to identify the objective circumstances limiting the effectiveness of self-organization. Self-organization is viewed as a type of relationship among individuals and organizations based on the norms other than those of remuneration which are typical of market institutions or the norms generated by the right to coercion inherent to the state. The paper points out the prevalence of both self-organization itself and the combinations of its institutions with those of the market and the state. It is shown that Pareto efficiency of self- organization is negatively affected by the same circumstances that result in the market or state failures, that is, information incompleteness and asymmentry, an increasing marginal return and discrepancy between public and private costs and benefits. This is essential for the analysis of combinations of heterogeneous institutions and devising more effective combinations of these institutions. The paper suggests some guidance to facilitate the search for such combinations without providing universal solutions for their quantitative estimates and implementation.