Markets and their social construction

Social Research, Summer, 2004 by Warren J. Samuels

CONCLUSION

Given how much the market has been studied and how much is known about the social construction of markets, it is remarkable that economists still discuss "the market" as if it were given and transcendent. Undoubtedly this predicament is due to ideological bias, disciplinary shorthand, studied ignorance and trained incapacity, and so on. But if the premise of my analysis is correct--namely, that we are in a position to articulate a meaningful, nonideological model of the market--some such model should be near at hand. I offer the one outlined here as a start. It is one that comports with Heilbroner's historically rich political economy.

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