These "players" (individuals,
corporations, even larger economic bodies, such as states) act either
irrationally or egotistically (too rationally).
What characterizes all those "market impeders" is that they are value
subtractors rather than value adders. Their activities generate a
reduction, rather than an increase, in the total benefits (utilities)
of all the other market players (themselves included). Some of them do
it because they are after a self interest which is not economic (or,
more strictly, financial). They sacrifice some economic benefits in
order to satisfy that self interest (or, else, they could never have
attained these benefits, in the first place). Others refuse to accept
the self interest of other players as their limit. They try to maximize
their benefits at any cost, as long as it is a cost to others. Some do
so legally and some adopt shadier varieties of behaviour. And there is
a group of parasites - participants in the market who feed off its very
inefficiencies and imperfections and, by their very actions, enhance
them.
A vicious cycle ensues: the body economic gives rise to parasitic
agents who thrive on its imperfections and lead to the amplification of
the very impurities that they prosper on.
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