>This idea of market participants' choices being entirely free rests on the efficient market fallacy

in an inefficient market, you can still choose to transact or not, and you will only do so if you feel you will benefit.

in an efficient market, the net benefit across society will be higher, but nothing in what I said requires an efficient market.

so you are simply wrong.

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johnnyanmac an hour ago | parent | next [-]

>in an inefficient market, you can still choose to transact or not

And if everybody chooses to not transact, you have a market crash. So... waves at 2026/2027

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mindslight 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, you cannot necessarily to choose whether to transact or not. For life's necessities (eg food, shelter) this is straightforwardly obvious. And you are making this claim in the context of the employment market, which is one step removed from that.

But even in the general case your argument still does not make sense. When we talk of a business providing societal utility, we don't include the business owner themselves in the integral. For example your assertion lets you conclude things like a casino owner who has made a pile of money but impoverished the community has made society better.

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fsckboy 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>No, you cannot necessarily to choose whether to transact or not.

I didn't say you could, pay closer attention or you will not be able to understand arguments or learn anything.

What I said was, "as long as people engaged in a market make their own choices, then money is a direct measure of happiness on the margin."

however, your mistake does contain a germ of reinforcement to what I said: if you cannot choose to participate in a transaction, you will be less happy, i.e. allowing sellers to offer choices and buyers to make choices will increase happiness in every type of market.

before you make another mistake and go shooting off, I didnt say people will be happy, I said they will be happier, but happier is an unmitigated good.

	▲	mindslight an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Try harder to not be a condescending dweeb, or you will not be able to have amicable discussions or overcome your own airtight but inapplicable logic. I didn't "reinforce" what you said, I pointed out an error in your framing that necessitates coming at the analysis a different way. The context of what you're responding to is a company laying people off - reducing the number of choices in the employment market. We're not talking about the dynamic of someone creating a new business and having to emphasize one or the other, but rather an existing business where the owners are choosing to change things to be closer to one end of the spectrum between the two.