[nbouscal]

No, the market economy is sold as a surplus-maximizing decentralized price system. I was attempting to reason by analogy. You've pointed to a difference between the two, but haven't given an explanation of why that difference is sufficient reason for the analogy to break. I'm happy to believe that it is, but am as yet uneducated as to why.

Edit in response to your edit: It just occurred to me that most of the critiques that nullc was making were in very direct correspondence to critiques one could make of the price system. I have no idea if this analogy is useful, but it seemed awfully coincidental.