real-world economics review, issue no. 97 subscribe for free
Fuck the market Terry Hathaway [University of York, UK] Copyright: Terry Hathaway, 2021
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Abstract The market is a foundational concept in economic and political thought. However, the dominant definition of the market has stripped out the role of place in the marketplace, which has facilitated markets being seen everywhere while increasingly existing nowhere. With markets seen everywhere, a societal discourse has been crafted that only serves to distort visions of economic relations the market discourse. This paper makes the case that a more limited definition of the market including the role of the centralisation that a place provides is possible but must be tied with an explicit rejection of the market discourse. Such a rejection clears the ground for building alternative concepts competition, business autonomy and strategy, fragmentary centralisation, and economic power that can be used to more accurately capture economic reality. Overall, the case is made that because the market without the - ace d e k, ca be fi ed, a d ac i e i hibi understanding of the world then it is imperative that it is rejected on the strongest grounds and other concepts, some of which are sketched in this paper, are deployed in its place. As such, this paper argues, fuck the market. Keywords markets, competition, capitalism, discourse, power
Introduction Contemporary political and economic discourse sees capitalist systems characterised as market economies, and references to both The Market and markets are ubiquitous; markets are seemingly everywhere. This situation is distinctly odd, as while economic relations have been more and more cha ac e i ed a a ke , a ec ie ha e ee b h he i he i g a a f adi i a marketplaces and the concurrent growth of hierarchically ordered non-market economic organisations (i.e. corporations). The reason that markets can be both seen everywhere and exist practically nowhere is due to two i . Fi , a ke ha e bee defi ed acc di g ab ac i ci e often product similarity or price uniformity that do not include place. While abstraction is not an issue per se, abstraction that cuts away from a central defining feature in this case, the place of marketplace is unhelpful. Second, the dominant definition of the market, stemming from neoclassical economics, has chosen exchange as the principle by which a market is defined; whenever there is exchange there is a market. Rendering he a ke a a f e cha ge ea ha he a ke ca be ee i a ec ic e throughout the entirety of human existence and paints capitalist relations of transactionary exchange a i e a , a a a d i e i ab e; i he begi i g he e e e a ke a Wi ia (1975: 21) writes. The consequence of these two points is that we are left with an idea of the market that is non-instituted and non-socialised. Moreover, the latter defi i i f he a ke ca e e e hi g a d defi e hi g. I i , h e e , ib e e c e a defi i i f he a ke b i c di g a e i e e f ace alongside exchange, multiple sellers, and similar goods. Applying such a definition, however, renders markets a relatively marginal part of contemporary capitalism.
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