I recently read the short story "Positive Feedback" written in the 1960s by Christopher Anvil. If you're interested, you can read the story here
It is a work of fiction - and as such it presents a simplification of reality for literary purposes. Nevertheless, it conveys the contortions a market economy goes through as various private interests stumble around trying to grab as much as they can in an ever-shifting context of corporate warfare.
A non-literary condensation of the story goes like this:
[Beginning of condensation]
A local auto repair shop. The prices are relatively low and the car owner pays for the essentials but puts off the non-essential work.
The garage owner gets promotional literature for a new device which will do much of the work at a repair shop, reducing the number of mechanics needed. But it's expensive. He writes back to the company and explains why he won't buy the machine.
The company gets lots of letters saying why they won't buy the machine, so the company makes some changes and sends out new promotional material.
While some of the changes are good, it's still too expensive for auto repair shops to feel they'll profit by buying one. And the company gets letters saying so.
The company is having so much trouble selling the machines, they're afraid of going bankrupt. The boss pressures the guy who started the car repair machine idea. He suggests that repair shops would get more business if car owners had insurance for non-accident repairs. They talk to an insurance company and convince them to sell car repair insurance.
The insurance company offers low cost car respir insurance - the low premiums based on current spending on car repairs.
Car owners start getting the insurance and have more repair work done because insurance will pay for it. As more people hear about how much money insurance is paying for car repairs, more people get insurance and have more work done on their cars.
Auto repair shops can't keep up with the increased demand for repair work, so they start buying the auto repair machines. Because demand for repairs is up and because repair shops have to pay for the machines they're buying, car repair prices go up.
Increasing numbers of car repairs and prices of car repairs cause insurance to spend more money. To keep up, insurance rates are repeatedly increased.
Eventually, insurance finds car repairs and costs incrase so much it doesn't seem profitable. Also, with an ulterior motive for the future, the insurance company lets a non-profit take over their car repair insurance policies.
Even the non-profit must keep jacking up the rates to break even.
When discontent with the high rates from the non-profit becomes serious, the insurance company jumps in again - but this time its policies require the car owner to meet a deductible before insurance has to pay - and even then insurance doesn't pay 100% of the bill.
The rates for the new kind of insurance are much lower than what the non-profit charges, so many car owners switch to the new insurance.
Because the car owners have to pay part of the bill, they start having fewer repairs done and start doing some repairs themselves at home.
Business drops for car repair shops. So they stop buying car repair machines.
At this point the "mechanics" at car repair shops only know how to operate the machines - not how to fix a car by hand. So repair shops are faced with the problem that there's not enough demand for car repairs to buy machines, but there's a lack of good mechanics....
[End of condensation]
It's a round-about way to do things. A company trying to sell car repair machines may very well try to determine whether there was a good enough chance of their company making profits in the short- to medium-range. But it will make no effort to determine whether the effects will be good or bad for society as a whole. The repair shops, repair machine manufacturers, insurance companies, car owners and other affected people will make their best guesses at what will personally benefit them - but those choices will all be made in partial ignorance because of business secrets and the unknown consequences of uncoordinated actions by a variety of players.
Advocates of the market may argue that the results are "democratically" decided by consumers. That's only true by a twisted definition of democracy. The public doesn't elect the business owners who play a crucial role in the process. It's sort of like having a "democracy" in which a minority appoints government office holders, then on election days the public can choose which of those officials they want removed. When the voters remove an official, the minority appoints another official who may or may not be removed at the next election. That's not my idea of democracy.
The other problem is that consumers (and other players) act based on limited information. Companies don't have to tell the whole story to the public. Corporate influence in the government limits what constitutes honesty and accuracy in ads. And there's even less control over honesty in public relations. When there's a clear preference among consumers, companies may try to make an approximation of that preference within the limits of profits and other corporate interests, but there's no such thing as an official consumer vote in which consumer preferences must be implemented as much as physically feasible.
A corporation wouldn't allow this kind of anarchy inside its organization. It wouldn't let its departments act independently and only act together insofar as the selfish interests of each department came to some temporary common path. If the convolutions of the market are always best, why don't corporations do it internally?
Real democracy means well-informed choices made by everyone and majority rule is binding. It doesn't mean those with more money (consumers who buy more items) have more say. It doesn't mean voting on products while those who run the product manufacturers are never voted on. It doesn't mean continuing to make harmful products as long as there are enough consumers too poor to choose safe products at market prices. It doesn't mean "voting" on companies that don't have to tell you what they're really doing. And it doesn't mean letting big money use their influence on government to override the will of the majority.