The world’s hunger for efficiency is constant. By minimising wasted inputs and maximising outputs, there are compelling reasons for its pursuit. Even if optimisation isn’t quite a physical or biological law, it’s a very useful framework for understanding humans’ modern self-organisation.
Take a public stock market. Investors want clear, consistent rules and proper disclosures that help to build trust, instantaneous (and increasingly round-the-clock) access to buyers and sellers, tight bid-offer spreads and responsiveness to price signals. In each domain, efficiency is both requirement and goal.
This doesn’t mean all markets are efficient. London’s Aim, for one, is beset by friction. Often ignored by mainstream investors, its inefficiencies make it harder for its ranks of smaller companies to raise capital, scale and escape the burdensome – and therefore inefficient – costs of a public quote.