The Social Construction of the Market (original) (raw)
Related papers
2007
Prominent economic sociologist Richard Swedberg has argued that economists have failed to develop a theory of the market that recognizes it as a “social phenomenon in its own right.” While this may be true of mainstream economics, the Austrian school’s theory of the market is much richer than the standard view. For Austrians, the market has always been a central concern. And, Austrians have always argued that the market is a social structure where both exchange and competition occurs. Still, Austrians give little more than scant attention to the non-economic sociality that occurs in markets. The market, however, is both a conversation and an arena where meaningful conversations can occur. This paper is an effort to focus attention on the market as a social space where social activity (beyond competition and exchange) takes place and where non-economic relationships as well as economic relationships develop.
Thinking Socially' about Markets
Journal of Australian Political Economy, 2011
For more than a century, the discipline of economics has been dominated by the neoclassical tradition of thought. This has bequeathed an understanding of markets as spheres of free exchange between autonomous, asocial individuals. Moreover, this understanding of markets is often reflected in mainstream public policy discourse. Yet the orthodox approach to understanding markets has proved inadequate for conceptualising the observed nature, practice and evolution of 'actually existing markets' (Chester 2010) in capitalist economies. As a result, it is contested on many fronts.
This course offers a broad overview of the different sociological approaches to the coming about and the evolution of economic institutions and diverse markets. It will cover issues ranging from the conditions of the coming about-of markets, the coevolution of polities and markets, the social regulation of economic action, to different conceptualizations of markets as sites of ongoing contestation of rules and evaluative principles. The seminars will be based on the critical discussion and contrasting of different approaches from the field of economic sociology with the sometimes conflicting sometimes complementary approaches from political sociology, law and economics and political economy to challenge the disciplinary division of labor in which economists study the economy and sociologists and political scientists study the social and political relations in which they are embedded.
The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, 2011
This is the Age of Markets. Markets have captured the imagination of people and the Market has assumed a pervasive place in business language. Often, the Market is used to convey a whole gambit of values and attributes that require no further explanation to those in the know. In some ways, markets have become abstractions that are translated in terms of people's understanding of trading and the way in which trading is conducted. The ubiquitous influence of markets has gone beyond private business and has influenced new concepts that involve the promotion of public services and concepts through social marketing. To capitalize on this development, it is essential to understand the driving forces that propel markets. A market can be described as. .. a gathering of people for buying and selling things.. . 1 Thus, markets are about people involved in a fundamental human activity: the exchange of goods and services. Consequently, markets are influenced by people's characteristics, their perceptions of wants and tastes, their purchasing power and their relative position in the market as buyers and sellers. One basic, simple proposition is that there are no markets without people, and that demographic trends and the number and characteristics of people are major determinants of the size and characteristics of markets. However, the social and economic environment of markets also influences the size and characteristics of populations. Among others, Adam Smith proposed that small markets discourage divisions of labour and hinder the power of exchanging. He indicated that small numbers of people force a greater degree of self-sufficiency and offer less scope for
THE HUMAN IMPACT OF THE MARKET
For the past decade, the government has been ruthlessly pursuing free market policies. It has introduced market forces into many walks of life previously protected from them; and it has vigorously promoted the values of the `enterprise culture'. The economic and social consequences of these policies have been dramatic and profound. On the one hand, there has been a radical economic `restructuring': a ruthless sweeping away of much that was old and inefficient, and a considerable streamlining and modernizing of the economy. In the process, however, the lives of countless individuals have been disrupted. Communities, and even whole regions, have been devastated. Millions have been thrown out of work, or forced into new and often uncongenial occupations.
Routledge Handbook of Economic Theology, 2020
This chapter shows how our contemporary concept of 'market' is derived from a particular nineteenth-century theological concern with the possibility of empirical insight into human society. I propose that our idea of what markets are and what they do is in fact a theological innovation.