[dragonwriter]

> But it happens all the time, through manifactured desire and the exploitation of people's addictions.

That's not a free market with perfect information, which is the economics equivalent of assuming away friction in Freshman physics exercises.

> People are not "rational actors" even though economic theory attempts to dictate it.

Economic theory doesn't "attempt to dictate" that people are rational actor, it uses the rational actor as a useful simplification that is broadly useful in describing large scale effects, and also one for which it is easy to identify specific difference between the model and reality and their effects, as well.

Admittedly, lots of people -- either through ignorance or because it suits what they are trying to sell -- treat the rational actor model or its implications for an idealized market as descriptions of real (or proposed) conditions when this is inappropriate given readily verifiable differences between the conditions that apply in the market and the explicit assumptions of the rational actor model, but that's more political salesmanship than economic theory.