Free Markets (3) - Benefit not Harm

Markets benefit people.

A market must allow sellers to display what they want to sell and allow buyers to make offers. However, a market is only successful if a significant number of sales take place. Buyers and sellers attend a market because they know that there is high probability of concluding a transaction with other people.

A market is an information system that allows people to buy and sell goods and services. In the Sunday market this information is provided by displaying the goods for observation. On eBay people display photos of their goods and detailed descriptions, instead of carrying them to the market. This reduces the costs of selling.

Transactions in the market only occur if two things happen. First, the seller must want the money being offered more than they want the thing they are selling. Second, the buyer must want the thing being sold more than they want the money they are offering. Both the buyer and the seller are better off after the transaction is complete. The buyer has a good they wanted. The seller has the money they wanted. This is the great benefit of a market. It allows people who do not know each other to engage in transactions that make all parties to the transaction better off.

No one is made worse off by a market. The only people disappointed at the market are those unable to sell the items they hoped to sell. They were unable to find someone who valued the item higher than they did, but they still have what they came with, so they are not worse off. Some potential buyers may be disappointed if they did not find what they want, but they still have the money they came with, so they are not worse off. An arrangement that makes lots of people better off, and harms no one, cannot be called evil.