I’m an investor on the other side who is just minding my own business buying market indices and then all of the sudden, less-than-ethical actors show up and bid up the price. Now I am being effectively taxed by buying portions of a soon-to-be-worthless company. Who/what are we going to optimize this situation for?

In this case the NYSE jumped on delisting hertz stock to prevent this kind of stuff from happening. But courts and government have to step in constantly, and a tooooon of law created, because we live in an incredibly complex system and it’s almost never clear cut how to optimize for greatest freedom/happiness.