For years, I've been
telling anyone who's willing to listen (and a few who probably
weren't) that markets don't exist. Really, they don't. Not in the
sense that many refer to them.
Richard Denniss has
a fantastic piece in The Monthly debunking the mythology about “The
Economy” that dominates contemporary politics like the arcane dogma
of a medieval priesthood. He largely covers the points in this blog,
but in a broader context. You should read the whole article, but in discussing the mystifications of economics, he says this:
Like the gods of cultures past, “the markets” can be angry. They can be vengeful. And they can punish non-believers. We must consult them cautiously. To simply inquire into the fall in the iron ore price, for instance, might spook them.While markets are real, it is absurd to suggest that they have feelings, needs or demands. A market is a place where buyers and sellers of a product come together. It might be a physical place, like the fish markets, or a virtual place, like eBay or the stock market. But markets never have feelings.
Appeals to “let
the market decide” are frequent in discussing technological
innovations, such as renewable energy. Conservatives have often
declared that governments have no business in “picking winners”
when it comes to wind farms and solar – because it is the job of
“the market” to choose. Of course that's their rhetoric for
public consumption; in private they are backing the incumbent
“winners”, fossil fuels. But it also illustrates their worship of
the mystical market-gods quite well.