Some have argued that the market is useful as an indicator, or measure; the amount of focus and reliance put upon the market varies widely; many types of decisions are founded upon market value; evaluation of decisions, concerns about status, and other management assessments somehow relate to the market.
Yet, we have to ask how this all relates to truth (little 't'). As well, the extent of the market has never been across the total of the human population; the forces at play in the market lead toward fixed points for which we can assign clever terms, many of which are not flattering. So, we'll not venture there, at this time.
Adam Smith's work has to be taken in context of the times that he lived; the world has changed phenomenally since his time. The rise of globalization and internationalization, as characterized by the web, for one, has some thinking that the market, in its idealized goal, is better served. Is that true? You see, the same fixed point (for nuances here, consider an interpretation as might be characterized in dynamical systems) phenomena are still problematic.
Perhaps, they are more so. Aspects of this problem relate to funds (hedge or otherwise), 'quant' efforts, and even political influence.
One thing that will be discussed further is how a true democratization might work better than the market. Of course, some may argue that what is defined here is really how the market ought to be. That's not an issue.
Who says that the market has evolved to what it ought to be? The issue is that at each stage of its evolution, some learn how to optimize their take (usually in an unbalanced manner).
Is all this anything other than a zero-sum game at the moment? This we'll look at in depth.
Remarks:
01/20/2013 -- Change link for bet2give.
08/04/2012 -- Over five years, we had a lot of side trips. We'll try to focus more. BTW, Rumsfeld has recently had his say.
10/11/2009 -- Discussion has gone over to FED-aerated. Note the 10/11/2009 Remarks about the Business Week article on India's progress' inhibitors. 'Near zero' recognizes that some always suffer more than others, especially in win-win situations, as the whole notion of characterization minimizes visceral reactions by diminishing the real in favor of the abstracted (ah, the modern world, you say?).
01/27/2009 -- Now a new day and way to consider these matters.
mm/dd/07 (earlier note) -- Market in the above sense is too constrained (gaming the world for profit by the few is not sufficient to knowledge as is needed for the many in future generations though it may be necessary) and does not consider the Collective Intelligence community in areas such as the bet2give example. We can look at these examples in terms of the need for a collective nose and how such might work. Of course, there are little and big 't' (truth or Truth) issues, and we must consider things and tribes, to boot.
Another issue to address might be attempts at obfuscation via abstraction, to wit the collection, labeling, slicing, and marketing of financial instruments that cannot be valued except by 'model' (or is it myth only?) - the sub-prime issue is extremely indicative of the problem. The cloud, supposedly made more palatable via the computational basis (read, the mathematical and related panache), then allows those in the know to exploit and fill their pockets. Do not the financial giants trample the simple little dreams of those who actually bring the 'value' to the table? All this because we've made progress with our control of the virtual via computation where only a few understand what is going on; granted a limited view of reality may have been enhanced thereby (we cannot go back but need to engineer computational truth), yet something is awry and stinks.
Modified: 01/20/2013
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