And can't be controlled any more effectively from a centralized power than a rain forest can.

You are right that the market system is a morass of complexity.

The end result, though, is that businesses still have to sell to customers to survive, and no matter what "tricks" are tried, at some point the market will compensate for endlessly rising prices or artificially-maintained scarcity if the product is a needed one. Microsoft is often used as an example of somebody sitting on a captive market, but any examination of their history shows they have run like hell to stay in front of the market, and in some cases, have succeeded only because their competitors stopped to rest on their laurels.

All I know is that you aren't going to make things any simpler, or any less corrupt, by injecting more politics into it. The government has enough control over the economy as it is, which accounts for most of the corporate/government corruption. Not only do sleazy businesses use lobbying to unfairly crippled competition, but honest businesses find they have to use lobbying just to defend themselves. Before 2000, Microsoft's total contributions to politics were in the hundred thousand range. Since they were shown the tools of their destruction by the anti-trust mobs, driven by their competitors, that amount has gone up significantly. This is not a good thing.

Increasing the control will just increase the corruption.

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

--P. J. O'Rourke