> Are Index Funds Communist?
> But when those thoughtful active analysts are replaced with passive index funds, the market stops serving that function.
> Indexing is cheaper, yes, but that's because active management has positive externalities, and if no one will pay for it, those benefits will disappear.
> But more fundamentally, there is an alternative view that the rise of passive investing will improve capital allocation
> The passive investors can't influence relative prices
> Their worry is that the growth in passive and quasi-passive products
> Or I guess pure indexing -- everyone passively throws money at everything that there is, with no judgment at all -- is an imaginable fourth answer, and is strictly worse than the others.