Shhhh! The Commies might be listening! :) The only reason I ... tolerate markets ( and I tolerate them quite well ) is that they act as a price discovery mecha

Shhhh! The Commies might be listening! :) The only reason I ... tolerate markets ( and I tolerate them quite well ) is that they act as a price discovery mechanism, a way of constructing decision trees using dynamic information. I have enough bandwidth to understand that basic trade - someone selling vegetables on the side of the road - is a win-win. Beyond that? I dunno. Hypothetically, Bob and Alice are specialized to each widget, which makes them more efficient. If we cannot come up with a preference-relation in which a range of possible sale/purchase values is allowed, then we can't really even hoist consumer surplus into use to support the EMH, can we? Isn't it at its core now a phony, game-playing exercise? There's no there there; it's curve-fitting nonsense on stilts at best. Self-referential systems are known to be deep pools of unmanageable complexity. And M&A seems to be a widely ignored disaster. I suspect - but really lack the chops to prove - that Adam Smith had it right all along, but that humans will always revert to isolated pools of mercantilist rent-seeking. That "markets" require beings who do not exist, or who have managed to get just enough ethical boilerplate to avoid the rent seeking. Just as Progressivism requires philosopher kings, so do ( apparently ) markets. So we're down to "well, it keeps the people who might otherwise be violent busy." When asked about American democracy, Ghandi said "I think it would be a good idea." I think capitalism would be just such a good idea. ObDisclosure: I have an old Usenet contact who is quite wealthy from a hedge fund. This guy's a PhD in applied math. He reports "I refute the EMH thusly" by kicking the logo of his firm.