Markets History of Markets The Passover of the Jews was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem In the temple he found people selling cattle sheep and doves and the money changers seated at their tables Making a whip of cords he drove all of them out of the temple both the sheep and the cattle He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables He told those who were selling the doves Take these things out of here Stop making my Father s house a marketplace Many of the citizens looked down on the merchants and the haggling Weber the first form of trade between merchant and merchant is met at the fairs Fairs are held on the land of a feudal lord and the lord guaranteed the safe conduct of the merchants National Markets Large complex markets was first developed by the activities of merchants The creation of national market was anything but automatic it could only be done with the help of political actors especially the state Markets in the medieval period was driven by local interests No economic power could break this hold of the local interests on the economy only political force could accomplish this Conflicts medieval localism vs mercantilist state political economy 60 tariffs along the Rhine Mass Markets External Markets Internal Markets A market economy is an economic system controlled regulated and directed by markkets alone self regulation Markets is more than a specific place For market economy the modern mass market is a necessary condition Market economy needs steady demand and predictable behavior by the state and the legal system Commerce was an affair between ethnic groups Commerce was a very distinctive social structure Trade was primarily engaged in b c of use value not profit Agora Allows commercial transactions leisure activities and social gatherings to take place 3 Perspectives 1 Civilizing Market Doux Commerce a The doux commerce thesis has become the liberal dream of market society with market exchange variously seen as a promoter of individual virtue and interpersonal cooperation the bulwark of personal liberty and political freedom and the mechanism by which human creativity can be unleashed and its products made available to society at large 2 Self Destructive Market a 3 Feeble Market View a But feeble market views theme is that markets are embedded in entangled with or otherwise dependent on other parts of society Beckert 2002 Scientific management Fordism To analyze factory jobs into their simplest component parts and then to simplify and reorganize work to achieve maximum efficiency Feudal Shackles Thesis realist view cultural legacy kind of cultural determinism Weber voluntarist understanding institutions matter differentiated perspectives variety of capitalism Network Definition Sets of relationships ties or links between economic actors of one stripe or another individual persons firms formal organizations Mainstream economics the number of buyers and sellers the ease of entry and exit the kind of commodity being sold the way market is regulated Economic sociology In addition to them the social relationships between buyers and sellers Variety of networks strength of networks strong tie vs weak tie duration direct and indirect ties level of networks personal corporate national Blue Collar intrusive heavy handed methods of control direct monitoring explicit and authoritarian relatively easy to measure individual productivity piece rate wage system White Collar more subtle and multiple ways to control a workforce supposed to be autonomous informal and social control hard to measure productivity results in long working hours subjective evaluation A Straight Salary a flat wage A Straight Commission based on productivity A Combination salary plus commission