It's a bit disturbing and dystopian that one counldn't think of any other way to 'distribute things efficiently' than markets ... but worse, that even contemplating that there could be 'other ways' would be 'silly'.

This is the genteel version of "BUT THAT'S COMMUNIST!!" in response to any kind of policy that isn't rooted in a really narrow purview of markets.

Also - it's also a misrepresentation to consider that 'rent control' is somehow not quite a 'market based' solution, or, that considering 'homes' to be a civic function first, and economic issue second, somehow means they'd completely outside market functions.

"have the most economically (and thus, morally) efficient outcome." <- Adam Smith himself would completely disagree.

The argument I'm making here is directly against this warped sense of what value is.

Markets are just a system of rules that allocate only through the narrow purview of those rules.

We only get 'efficiency' as defined by those rules.

There are many examples, but at easy one, is that we grow our GDP substantially by getting older and sicker, and 'having more work to do' to take care of our system gone awry, or, that wars can be very profitable due to the armaments and subsequent reconstruction efforts.

Both of those by the are rooted in a similar notion - that we don't actually measure 'consumer surplus' - which is the value or 'profit' obtained by the individual, we only ever 'producer surplus'.

If we started to put 'consume surplus' as part of the GDP (impossible, because value is in the eye of the beholder, but maybe plausibly, it could be done) - then we'd see the 'consumer GDP' drop off a cliff as we got old and sick, so much that it would not make up for the increased consumer side GDP benefit of 'medical economy'.

That's just to start.

You could look at national security and justice, and how if we had to pay our soldiers for the risks they take - it would never work.

The more challenging one is to start recognizing the markets are mostly a function of power arbitrage, and not value creation.

We like to think that 'the man who builds his home, and does work for others, creates value, while the man who does nothing all day does not' - yes - that's the easiest way to see it, and it's not wrong. But most of the economy does not work that way, it works on power. Traditionally, it's rooted in real estate, now, it's also rooted in resource access and I would say finance. (And of course as always, political access and monopoly rights).

We should make 'housing' the primary focus, and use 'markets' as a 'tool' to enable social outcomes, not the other way around.

So the 'baseline things' - like basic housing, civil infrastructure, security, food security - those we have to have to be grounded in non-market terms using 'markets as tools' - and then the rest of everything, well, people can have fun, do as they please etc..

Critically - more people should to read Adam Smith, to see where he was coming from. The 'godfather' of economics was the first person to grasp it's limitations.