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With the notable exception of Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek, market theoreticians have to a large extent employed the equivalent of the Great Man theory of history to explain what makes markets tick. According to this theory, the course of history is shaped not by the convergence of multiple, unpredictable events but by the intervention of great men. Likewise, in the conventional thinking about markets, economic progress depends not on the labors of infinite economic actors but on the select few, the brainiacs, who rise to the top and generate innovations from which ordinary mortals benefit through a kind of trickle-down effect.
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The only problem with this neat little formulation is that it is wrong at every level. For starters, the idea that value creation is a one-way street from the top to the bottom is not just offensive, but it ignores the principle of comparative advantage, a key breakthrough in market theory. Put simply, this principle holds that everyone benefits by exchanging goods and services with everyone else, regardless of anyone's inherent capabilities. It's in the interest of even the most annoying "all-rounder" (as we say in India), who is better than me at everything, to specialize in those tasks in which our gap is the biggest and trade with me for those in which our gap is smaller. Under the elaborate division of labor that ensues, both the less-endowed and the better-endowed contribute to each others well being.
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