There is an important tension between the impure diversity of human transactions in any actual social order and the pure market model which focuses the attention of apologists and critics alike. Put baldly, the market is both less good and less bad than claimed because it is a less definite thing than we think. In fact, economic theory reflects relatively little on 'the market' as a distinct form; this category has had within economics the same kind of axiomatic status as 'society' within the field of sociology, or 'culture' within anthropology. Markets are seen by economists less as social institutions, than in terms of a set of economic principles which characterise processes of exchange. Part of the reason why notions of 'the market' have been so portable to other areas of social life, especially since the 1980s, is because economics itself lacks an institutional model of the market. Indeed, economists, whatever their persuasion, are less likely to talk of 'the market' which is more the language of neoliberal politics than of such market elements as value, exchange, supply, demand, competition and equilibrium.


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Note added at 22 mins (2003-11-03 00:24:02 GMT)
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tygru:
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