From calculation to alienation

Disentangling Economic Abstractions

Bibliographic Data

ID2159309
AuthorsD Slater (0000-0002-4767-3187, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume31
Issue2
Pages234-249
Publication date2002-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomy and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-5147 • E-ISSN: 1469-5766
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03085140220123144
OpenAlexW2071267526
LanguageEN
Citations received78

This article uses a debate between Michel Callon and Daniel Miller to explore tensions within economic sociology and anthropology.The tension is between characterizations of markets and economic rationality that seem to dissolve them into a generalized notion of culture and those which seem to abstract them as specific social forms. The paper argues that markets are best defined in terms of a form of transaction rather than a specific mode of calculation: market transactions involve the alienation of goods in the form of property. Such transactions require the kinds of socio-technical apparatuses that Callon describes, in order to establish both alienability and its limits; on the other hand, and drawing on Callon's own concepts of framing and overflowing, such transactions allow for more diverse, ambiguous and contradictory forms of calculation than Callon seems to allow. The latter point is developed particularly in relation to cultural calculation, typified by marketing and advertising. Keywords: MarketsRationalityCalculationAdvertisingMarketingPropertyExchange

Alienation · Database transaction · Economic sociology · Economics · Epistemology · Framing (construction · Law and economics · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Order (exchange · Political science · Positive economics · Rationality · Social order · Social science · Sociology · Transaction cost · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law

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