I can't express how badly I want this meme to take hold! I've wondered for years why anyone can believe that humans are rational agents in the face of the existence of the huge marketing apparatus present in advanced economies. I mean, if we really are rational decision-making agents, why does a manufacturer pay someone to come up with a jingle? To engineer a fad via guerrilla marketing? To create brand impressions by slapping a logo on a race car or sports stadium? All of these techniques, and all of the other successful marketing techniques out there, survive precisely because humans can be persuaded to spend money irrationally.

"So what?," you say? Well, that great artifice, "Classical Free Market Theory," rests on the foundation of rational agents making locally optimal solutions with imperfect information. It seems to me to predict, for example, that there's no profit to be made anywhere in a steady state condition. The rational masses, so the theory goes, will always seek the cheapest goods that meet the need, regardless of brand recognition, sexy women placed next to sports cars, or celebrity endorsement. In this case, every competitive scenario results in goods being produced at cost.

Thankfully (I think), this is not the case, and there is a way to wealth that is left open. Namely, a successful entrepreneur needs to be present when people are making non-rational decisions with their money. This is not to say that these are bad decisions, or that the entrepreneur needs to be unscrupulous. It's just an acknowledgment of the fact that rational decision-making in a quasi-equilibirum economic scenario results in zero profit margin.