When I am dead, I hope it is said;

Good essay. I agree that people are selfish and that economies predicated on people acting selflessly are doomed. But I also think your "cake economy" is an ideal, one that cannot ever be reached, and that the selfish actions of those willing to collude, manipulate the market, manipulate information flow, etc. will always pollute the market and continue driving it away from the perfect situation. I don't agree these are acute, correctable problems. They are chronic afflictions of a free market that require outside intervention to correct. In a perfect economy, with everyone operating with perfect information and motives, such problems are correctable, but that state will never exist in reality. I don't see any way to level the playing field enough for a true free-market to operate properly.