>> Everything is a market. Any time people get together, for any purpose, trading occurs.
> The truth of that assertion hinges on us not remembering the billion other counter-examples.
It would have been nice if you'd have provided some of those counter-examples.
> people don't always gather with the intention to buy/sell
There's your problem - you think that trading only involves money. It doesn't. It's the exchange of value.
Yes, you hang around with your friends because you get more out of doing that than it costs you to do so.
Yes, someone will try to impose costs on you to affect your choices. You'll try to avoid them.
Sure, everything's a trade of value if you define the term "trade of value" loosely enough. As far as I can tell, that's more of a semantic game than an actual revelation.
At a certain point in that line of reasoning, the "value" becomes nothing but "satisfaction in knowing you did something nice for someone else." It's something people value, but to put it in terms of a market transaction misses the point by a wide margin.
It would have been nice if you'd have provided some of those counter-examples.
> people don't always gather with the intention to buy/sell
There's your problem - you think that trading only involves money. It doesn't. It's the exchange of value.
Yes, you hang around with your friends because you get more out of doing that than it costs you to do so.
Yes, someone will try to impose costs on you to affect your choices. You'll try to avoid them.