Promoting confusion about what markets are supposed to be has become standard operating procedure among market designers. To wit: “In addition to markets, there is also the market, an abstraction as in ‘the market economy’ or ‘the free market’ or ‘the market system.’ The abstract market arises from the interaction of many actual markets” (McMillan, Reinventing the Bazaar, p. 6).

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 2275