Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture

Abstract

James Carrier (ed.), Meanings of Market: The Free Market in Western Culture, Oxford and New York: Berg, 1997, xvii + 276 pagesReviewer: Anne Vallelyconcordia UniversityOn July 4th of this year, Adbusters magazine unveiled a new American flag. In place of familiar white stars were corporate logos such as those of Nike, McDonald's, Shell, IBM and Coca-Cola. The intention, of course, was to highlight power that big corporations now have over political process, but its resonance attested to something closer to home: increasingly, very meaning of America--what it stands for in popular imagination--is being truncated and reduced to little more than that of economy. Alternately put, economy is increasingly discourse through which Americans define their culture and themselves. Whether this is understood as a flattening and narrowing of social life to fit dictates of instrumental rationality, or a re-definition of social life in terms of language of market, it essentially amounts to same thing: idea of is now a central organizing principle in American culture.Meanings of Market is a collection of essays that explore complex and often contradictory meanings of market in Western culture. The reified free market model is pulled out of skies and down to a level of empirical to reveal its historical, cultural, and ideological underpinnings. It is an impressive collection of six original essays and a wonderful introduction by James Carrier which weaves chapters into a coherent theoretical whole. Carrier persuades us to see free market model as a type of discourse through which we talk about ourselves and others; a lingua franca that imposes a particular type of order and meaning of experience, and through which we understand ourselves. Central to model is idea that world is comprised of detached individuals, free of cultural and social constraints, rationally calculating costs and benefits of their economic transactions. Carrier reveals this model to be more artifact than fact--one that concerns our idealized selves, and our beliefs about way things should work, far more than it reflects actual workings of economy.So, in spite of Asian financial crisis, Russia's faltering economy, dot.com disasters and growing absolute poverty for vast majority of humankind, we continue to be told by high priests of capitalism that the fundamentals of world economy are sound. To faithful, free market model is impervious to criticism: successes are all its own, failures are attributed to deviations from model, and alternative non-market successes are anomalies. The model has all makings of a cultural myth: its meanings are multiple, condensed, and its boundaries are hard to delimit. Within its scope are such strongly held cultural values as anti-authoritarianism, equality, self-reliance, individual responsibility, freedom from constraint, and private property--it is a deep well whose riches can never be used up.Carrier is careful not to underestimate power of myth, and is critical of efforts in anthropology that separate culture from society. Treating market solely as an idealized representation, removed from any connection to reality, would be to ignore its immense and frequently injurious impact on lives of ordinary people, and on natural environment. The increasing privatization of social services in name of efficiency, accelerating monetization of social life through cost-benefit analysis, and reorganization of local economies to meet global demands in name of ever freer trade, are all examples of how free market ideology is anything but illusory.The book's focus is on market model as it is understood in America, where it has indubitably strongest ties to cultural identity and most forceful rhetorical appeal. …