Say, for example, that new demanders in the titanium market seek 6 billion pounds of titanium at a price of $20/lb. This will cause a shortage of titanium. There are three relevant parties in this situation:
- Existing users of titanium
- Suppliers of titanium
- New users of titanium
In order to deal with the shortage, there cannot be a czar of titanium. A central allocator would have to ask the existing users to use less, the supplier to supply more, and the new users to lessen their demand for titanium. This simply isn't practical because no person has the knowledge needed in order to suggest any of this. A titanium czar would need to know a myriad of things that he or she couldn't possibly ever know. It's likely that even the market participants, of whom these requests are asked of, don't know the answers. The price system does what a czar would want to do.
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