i had similar objections to yours but i would phrase the corrections differently. >The point of a financial market is no, the point of a financial market is t

i had similar objections to yours but i would phrase the corrections differently. >The point of a financial market is no, the point of a financial market is to be a place where people who need money for lucrative projects can get it, and a place where people who have money can invest it, decoupling those transactions from the term of the investments and the irregularities of the different economic opportunities. To put it in simpler terms, think of the market of a town in medieval england, a financial market would allow you to know nothing in particular about farming but invest profitably in the farming activities of the town, getting what portion you want of your money back whenever you want it. >to allocate capital to its most productive uses is in the nature of a market that has the features markets need to function efficiently. The point of a financial market is capital allocation, and people will partake even if the market is inefficient. Consider illegal/black markets, they are often cited as truly free markets where you can invest large sums of cash or buy anything for a price, and even though the prices are high, there are customers. Those markets can be made more efficient, but the fact they exist shows the power of markets without efficiency. >>And an efficient market would allocate a lot of capital to her >Then that would give a single individual more control over the market than is healthy one of the features a market needs for efficiency (think of efficiency as "goods at a fair price") is that no participant alone can affect the prices; for that to be true there needs to be competition, and without it you get "market failure", a market where participants receive no benefit from participating. (markets should operate at a point where sellers are saying "that price offer is too low" and buyers are saying "that price offer is too high", but all the "great deal, I'll take it" transactions that already took place to get it to that point are were the happiness is created from thin air.) as new information emerges, prices can shift up and down to maintain that "take it or leave it" equilibrium. no system is perfect, not democracy, not the courts, etc., but regulations and people mostly acting sensibly even in self interest makes markets the best method we have of allocating happiness most effectively. being cynical about market capitalism is understandable, but it doesn't get you anywhere, other systems demand even more cynicism.