Regarding markets: they are only the sum of the people that constitute them. Not all reasons or incentives for actions in a market have to be monetary. IOW: if something is of value to people, it will usually be done. If that doesn't happen, usually people say they want something, but do not really care that much.
I don't really get what you are saying. The book I mentioned has some interesting arguments and anecdotes.
One is also in Predictably Irrational: in short parents were always late picking up the kids from day care. The day care decided to issue a fine for late parents. The unintended consequences of this were that the parents were way more late on average because they felt they were paying for it. It switched the system from one based on social norms to market norms.
At ball games everyone used to be forced into the same shitty seats. Now the well to do get a pass and have luxury seats with better food and views. Instead of fostering community it further alienates the rich and the poor. This leads to a filter bubble of sorts that prevents both groups from empathizing with each other.
Same with courts and the legal system, fasttrak lanes, free shows put on that have secondary markets.
I didn't get that you were talking about a book, sorry.
If you say that basing all interactions around money or segregating people into different groups that get different service can be a bad idea, I agree.
>Regarding markets: they are only the sum of the people that constitute them.
No, they're the sum of the constitutive people, minus all the parts that don't deal with property, trade, contracts, and debt, plus distortions added by institutional arrangements.
I'd say if there is a distortion or limiting arrangement, it's not a free market, and thus its participants behave differently, because they can't freely take their decisions.
If people take their decisions freely, quite often money is not the top priority, but more traditional - and human - values may be.
>I'd say if there is a distortion or limiting arrangement, it's not a free market,
Then the term "free market" is an oxymoron. By conjuring a market, which deals with money, property, and profit therein, you have already made it unfree.
And why is that? If you make a profit, you sell something for more than the sum of its parts. You add value and get something in return. Property is just stuff you kept after an exchange. Money is a medium of exchange. Where is the unfree part?
IRL, there are lots of problems (in general), most of them not from markets, but lots also because people make bad decisions in markets. I think those are communication problems, though - people not agreeing on values. So many people scream "market failure", but nobody ever screams "voter/election failure", when people make bad decisions there that cause problems.
