Ayn Rand wrote "there is no such entity as the public."
Like those other believers in the myth of social atomism (that underlies libertarianism and free-market laissez-faire orthodoxy) their point is that we should focus on empowering the individual and avoid addressing collective needs. The collective not only has no reality compared to the individual, but catering to it is socialist, and deprives non-consenting individuals of their very liberty and takes from them their wealth, an unacceptable burden.
Why then are we always talking about The Market like it were some anthropomorphic reality?
If there is no policy value in speaking of, or addressing needs of the public, or of society, then surely the same is true of the market. Each is really only a collection of individuals, right? Thus a brutal budgetary austerity and other measures aimed at boosting "market confidence" are revealed as socialism. Such policies benefit individuals who have the wherewithal to invest by stealing from those that do not.
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