This statement is either alarming or vacuous. It’s alarming if you’re saying that the measurable benefit from a profitable transaction trumps any reference to broader notions of the common good (or is the common good). But I suspect you’re saying that ‘better off’ can be trumped by ‘common good’, but that the argument needs to be made (‘good reasons’) – in which case all you’re really saying is that A may be more important than B, but then again B may be more important than A.

Owen replies: Phil: what I am saying is that if there is a common good (or harm) that is not reflected in the transaction then that is a market failure (an externality).  When government intervention is proposed, the correct questions are: "a. what is the market failure that it fixes? and b. is there a better way to fix it?".  The article does neither.