There has been much written of late in the press about just what constitutes market manipulation. This, of course is in the wake of what has been characterized as an “investment mob” hijacking a short play on GameStop, AMC, and a couple other stocks over the past week or so.

It’s useful to recognize just what market manipulation is, and, just as profitably, what it is not.

A generally accepted definition is that it is the act of artificially inflating or deflating the price of a security, or otherwise influencing the behavior of the market for personal gain. What it is not is consenting adults trading with their own money.

Everybody – especially politicians – are eager to discover some wrongdoing in the whole GameStop investment whirlwind. There are conspiracy theories circulating that Robinhood, the online trading app that temporarily limited trades in certain stocks last week as they were deluged by orders for Reddit-inspired orders, was part of some plot to come to the rescue of the hedge funds who had been caught with their pants around their ankles; other iterations say it was the clearing house that ganged up on Robinhood, forcing it to halt trading, for the same nefarious purpose. Apparently we never tire of conspiracy theories.

None of it is true, of course. Part of the job of a clearinghouse is to mitigate risk by requiring a certain amount of capital to back up trades, protecting trading parties from bankruptcy. In response to the influx of trades to buy up GameStop and others a couple weeks ago, the clearinghouse issued a margin call for more capital than usual, to cover the extra risk.

In any event, what happened was unusual, but not illegal. If anything it may re-inject a bit of price discipline in the market, and cause hedge fund managers to pause a little longer when deciding whether to take on the risk of a short sell.

Which is not to say market manipulation does not happen. Elon Musk, for instance, was fined by the SEC in 2018 for tweeting that he had secured investment funding sufficient to take Tesla private, causing wild swings in the company’s stock price.

But more often, it is government that acts in ways to artificially move a market. Which, incidentally, is why it is so ironic when politicians like Elizabeth Warren and AOC on the left, or Ted Cruz on the nominal right, go on the interminable hunt for manipulative wrongdoing in the private financial markets.

The fiscal and economic consequences of government interference in economic life are well established, recorded, and commented upon. What is less commonly noted is the more subtle ways government can sway public currents, not all of which are strictly financial in nature, by way of stacking governmental panels and task forces.

Take, for instance, Denver’s “Reimagine Policing and Public Safety Task Force,” set up last year to look at issues of perceived excessive use of force by police. The task force did include one seat for the Denver Police – but come to find out, it was token representation at best.

Enough so that Denver Public Safety Director Murphy Robinson last month withdrew law enforcement participation from the group out of frustration with its structurally tendentious nature.

Among other things, Robinson pointed out that law enforcement representatives were directed to not openly participate, but be there only to answer questions. When they did speak, for example to point out that policing in the real world is not always the neat cut-and-dried academic exercise that some would wish it to be, they were accused of “traumatizing” other members.

It is pretty safe to say that the predetermined goal of this task force was not to engage in a thoughtful examination of police tactics and use of force.

There are other examples too. The Denver Climate Task Force saw fit to include a representative from the automotive industry – fitting, given the potential impact on that industry of whatever policies it generated. But that invitation, too, turned out to be merely optical. The auto industry representative participated in the meetings, offered input and suggestions, and presented a viewpoint that was unfamiliar, not to say helpful, to the majority of the task force members. He was repeatedly asked to kindly keep quiet, and if his or his industry’s opinion was wanted, they would ask for it.

Such is the reality of governing today, in this new age of selective inclusion.