speaking of fallacies, surely there's a middle ground where our "rulers" are not all geniuses (plutocracy vs meritocracy), but that on average companies pursue things that work over things that don't (survivorship bias).
and groups of people can be smart crowds or dumb (slime) mobs, depending on the systemic conditions.
The correctness of that conjecture depends on what you're averaging over. For example, racism and sexism. Those apparently can persist in the workplace, on average, despite the drag on profits. However, I'd agree that for the average topic, the market does a pretty good job of optimizing behavior.
that's more of a frame of reference issue though. in cases like racism/sexism, available profits on average do accrue to the people wielding power for that purpose, whether it's good for profits overall.
and groups of people can be smart crowds or dumb (slime) mobs, depending on the systemic conditions.