Towards a social ontology of market systems

Academic analyses of market systems are deeply divided. While economists tend to neglect the personal and sociological factors that shape the behaviour of market actors, sociologists tend to discount the possibility of a systematic analysis of the consequences of market interactions. Economists thus end up with unrealistic models of markets, and sociologists end up unable to explain the economic impact of markets. This paper outlines a project that aims to produce an analysis of markets that is both sociologically realistic and capable of explaining economic effects. The project will construct a realistic ontological analysis of market systems, developed using a critical realist methodology. Market systems, it will argue, are social structures that depend ontologically upon both human individuals and a number of normative institutions. These institutions tend to produce coordinated interactions between market actors, and these interactions underpin mechanisms that endow market systems with emergent causal powers. Different types of interactions underpin different market mechanisms, including mechanisms like those theorised by mainstream economists, but also others that they tend to neglect, and an adequate understanding of real-world markets depends on analysing these multiple mechanisms and how they interact. This will be a theoretical project in economic sociology, drawing on existing empirical work without conducting new empirical research. It will be focussed primarily on contemporary product markets in advanced capitalist economies, while selected historical and alternative contemporary models will be considered more briefly to illustrate both the historical specificity of the dominant contemporary model and the possibility of alternative types of market system

Online conferences don’t have to feel like substitutes. 4 considerations for making yours better than the ‘real thing’

Academics and event organisers have had to quickly adapt to online conferences. However, they are here to stay. Mark Carrigan and Dave Elder-Vass argue that digital events offer opportunities to be better than face-to-face versions. They outline four considerations for organisers and participants to embed online events in academic culture, as a superior alternative to many, though probably not all, face to face events in the post-pandemic landscape

Towards a realist social constructionism

Social constructionism has often been seen as incompatible with realist approaches to the social world. This paper argues that critical realism is thoroughly compatible with moderate versions of social constructionism and indeed provides stronger ontological backing for it than the anti-realist approaches that are often associated with more extreme versions of social constructionism. The paper illustrates the argument by offering a realist account of how discourse may underpin processes of social construction. This is then applied to the case of the subject, an application that is framed as a critique of Judith Butler’s performative account of the subject.O construtivismo social tem sido muitas vezes visto como incompatível com abordagens realistas do mundo social. Este artigo defende que o realismo crítico é totalmente compatível com versões moderadas do construtivismo social e que, de facto, lhe fornece maior suporte ontológico do que as abordagens antirrealistas, frequentemente associadas a versões mais extremas do construtivismo social. O artigo demonstra esta teoria oferecendo uma descrição realista de como o discurso pode sustentar processos de construção social. Este argumento é, assim, aplicado ao caso do sujeito, numa proposta enquadrada como crítica da descrição performativa do sujeito de Judith Butler.Le constructivisme social a souvent été vu comme incompatible avec les approches réalistes du monde social. Cet article soutient que le réalisme critique est totalement compatible avec des versions modérées du constructivisme social et que, en fait, il lui apporte un plus grand support ontologique que les approches antiréalistes, souvent associées aux versions plus extrêmes du constructivisme social. L’article démontre cette théorie en proposant une description réaliste de la façon dont le discours peut soutenir des processus de construction sociale. Cet argument est ainsi appliqué au cas du sujet, selon une proposition encadrée en tant que critique de la description performative du sujet, de Judith Butler. El constructivismo social ha sido visto muchas veces como incompatible con abordajes realistas del mundo social. Este artículo defiende que el realismo crítico es totalmente compatible con versiones moderadas del constructivismo social y que de hecho le otorga mayor soporte ontológico que los abordajes anti-realistas, frecuentemente asociadas a versiones más extremas del constructivismo social. El artículo demuestra esta teoría ofreciendo una descripción realista de como el discurso puede sostener procesos de construcción social. Este argumento es, así, aplicado al caso del sujeto, en una propuesta encuadrada como crítica de la descripción del performance del sujeto, de Judith Butler

Emergence and the realist account of cause

The concept of emergence is routinely invoked in critical realist theory, but rarely examined. Yet emergence is fundamental to the realist account of cause. This paper aims to improve critical realism's understanding of emergence by discussing, first, what emergence is and how it works; second, the need for a compositional account of emergence; and third, the implications of emergence for causation. It goes on to argue that the theory of emergence leads to the recognition of certain hitherto neglected similarities between real causal powers and actual causation

Assets need audiences: How venture capitalists boost valuations by recruiting investors to asset circles

Narratives and conventions have received considerable attention in recent discussions of the valuation of financial assets. Narratives and conventions, however, can only be effective to the extent that they attract and persuade audiences, and this article makes the case for paying more attention to those audiences. In particular, the article argues that financial assets can only be established as assets if there is a group of potential investors that has been persuaded to accept them as such: to take them seriously as potential investments. The article coins the term asset circles to refer to such groups and supports the argument with a discussion of venture capital and its role in the production of unicorns: private companies with extraordinary valuations. Venture capital firms may be thought of as value entrepreneurs, and much of the venture capital process is oriented towards constructing both value narratives for the companies they invest in and asset circles prepared to accept those value narratives. Their aim in these processes is a profitable exit, in which the venture capital firm converts its investment back into cash at a considerable profit through either an acquisition or a flotation

Material parts in social structures

There has been much debate on whether and how groups of human agents can constitute social structures with causal significance. Both sides in this debate, however, implicitly privilege human individuals over non-human material objects and tend to ignore the possibility that such objects might also play a significant role in social structures. This paper argues that social entities are often composed of both human agents and non-human material objects, and that both may make essential contributions to their causal influence. In such cases the causal influence of social structures should be attributed to the emergent causal powers of socio-technical entities

Lifeworld and systems in the digital economy

The digital economy has provided opportunities for new forms of economic practice. At their purest, these forms deliver economic benefits as gifts and depend on cooperation without authority. Drawing loosely on Habermas, we may call this a lifeworld economy – an economy that is coordinated by communicative interaction – as opposed to the systems economy of market and state, coordinated by money and power. This formulation, however, faces both theoretical and practical challenges. On the theoretical side, the notion of a lifeworld economy does not sit easily with Habermas’s own formulation of the distinction between lifeworld and systems. On the practical side, the digital lifeworld economy has been colonised steadily by capitalist businesses, which have frequently found ways to incorporate forms of gift and cooperation into profit-oriented business models. This paper proposes to reformulate Habermas’s distinction as a reference to different kinds of causal mechanisms, detaching it from his functionalist framework and enabling more flexible application to empirical cases. It then applies it to a series of iconic cases from the digital economy: amazon, Wikipedia, and open source software, to demonstrate its continuing relevance to very current issues

The moral economy of digital gifts

The significance of giving as a contemporary socio-economic practice has been obscured both by mainstream economics and by the influence of the anthropological tradition. Andrew Sayer’s concept of moral economy offers a more fruitful framework for an economic sociology of contemporary giving, and one that appears to be largely consistent with social quality approaches. This paper analyses giving from the perspective of moral economy, questioning the view that giving is a form of exchange, and opening up the prospect of seeing it as the outcome of a more complex constellation of causal factors. It uses examples from the digital economy, in particular the phenomenon of open source software, which nicely illustrates both the progressive potential of digital gifts and the ways in which they can be absorbed into the commercial economy

Reflections on sociology’s unspoken weakness: Bringing epistemology back in

Reflections on sociology’s unspoken weakness: Bringing epistemology back i

Actor-network theory

Actor-network theor