Economic Markets As Collective Calculating Devices
Callon, Michel
Economic Markets As Collective Calculating Devices - 2003.
72
How to address empirically the calculative character of markets without dissolving it? In this paper the authors propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without debunking their calculative properties. In the first section they construct a broad definition of calculation, grounded on the field of STS (science and technology studies). In the following sections they confront this definition to three constituent elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges. First they examine the question of the calculability of goods: in order to be calculated, goods must be calculable. They then introduce the notion of calculative distributed agencies to understand how these calculable goods are actually calculated. Thirdly, they consider the rules and material devices that organize the encounter between (and aggregation of) individual supplies and demands, i.e. the specific organizations that allow for a calculated exchange and a market output. Those three elements define concrete markets as collective organized devices that calculate compromises on the values of goods. In each, they encounter different versions of their broad definition of calculation that they illustrate with some examples, mainly from the fields of financial markets and mass retail.
Economic Markets As Collective Calculating Devices - 2003.
72
How to address empirically the calculative character of markets without dissolving it? In this paper the authors propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without debunking their calculative properties. In the first section they construct a broad definition of calculation, grounded on the field of STS (science and technology studies). In the following sections they confront this definition to three constituent elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges. First they examine the question of the calculability of goods: in order to be calculated, goods must be calculable. They then introduce the notion of calculative distributed agencies to understand how these calculable goods are actually calculated. Thirdly, they consider the rules and material devices that organize the encounter between (and aggregation of) individual supplies and demands, i.e. the specific organizations that allow for a calculated exchange and a market output. Those three elements define concrete markets as collective organized devices that calculate compromises on the values of goods. In each, they encounter different versions of their broad definition of calculation that they illustrate with some examples, mainly from the fields of financial markets and mass retail.
Réseaux sociaux