I wasn't denying that– it's quite obvious that capitalism and its market-mechanisms are the best form of organising an economy. At least among those that we kno

I wasn't denying that– it's quite obvious that capitalism and its market-mechanisms are the best form of organising an economy. At least among those that we know. The criticism was directed at the ever-expanding high end of financial markets where it seems to me the benefits it produces in the "real world" are marginal at best and in no way proportional to the money earned in the sector and the brain capacity it utilises. Some deep learning outfit with 200 quants basically putting pressure on the "speculator" in the scenario you sketched out, that may or may not create some small marginal improvement in the market, but could also just serve to better capture any residual utility the farmer and baker may have had from participating in the first place.