Isn't this the underlying phenomena as to why free markets outperform managed markets. Because theoretically the controlled market can be much more efficient than the free market, you know, because people don't have to fight each other for their share of the market all the time. But they never are. Why? Because nobody has to understand the market for it to work, everybody just pushes and the market molds itself into the form it needs. Where a controlled market operates under the illusion that it can be understood.
In practice, markets were managed since the Bronze Age. Back then, authorities set wages and prices through palace and temple institutions, standardized weights, etc.