Beyond Market Hegemony: Re-Thinking the Relationship between Market and Non-Market Economic Practices

Abstract

Conventionally, non-market economic practices have been represented as a residue or leftover from pre capitalist formations and as disappearing as the market becomes hegemonic. Recently, however, recognition that non-market economic practices are surviving and even expanding has led to a range of attempts to re-articulate the relationship between market and non-market work more generally. These have variously depicted non-market practices as a chosen alternative to the market, an involuntary survival practice for those decanted from the market sphere or as a realm operating as a complement rather than substitute for market practices. To evaluate these rival representations of the relationship between market and non-market work, a survey is here reported of the work practices of 313 households in Moscow conducted during late 2005 and early 2006. Finding that non-market work is a central feature of the livelihood practices of many households and that there is a complementary relationship between market and non-market economic practices in the sense that households benefiting most from the market realm also benefit most from the non-market realm, a tentative call is made to move non -market work out of the margins more centre-stage in economic studies and for a wider re -evaluation of its relationship to market work.