Markets

Abstract

The previous chapter explored the uses and limitations of Weber’s ideal-types of capitalism, or more precisely ideal-types of capitalistic profit-making, for thinking sociologically about contemporary capitalist society and culture. The present chapter will extend this work by looking in detail at Weber’s sociology of the market. Weber’s writings on markets have received comparatively little attention in the secondary literature (a notable exception is Swedberg, 1998, 2000; see also Preda, 2009:39–45), although this is perhaps unsurprising given that markets have not always been central to the concerns of economic sociology (see, for example, Stinchcombe, 1983; for a commentary on this tendency, see Cetina and Preda, 2005). The argument of this chapter, by way of response, is that a sociology of the market is vital for understanding the inner workings and broader cultural dynamics of contemporary capitalism. It will be argued that Weber’s conception of the market continues to be of significance because it addresses, in particular, the core socialities of capitalist profit-making in terms of exchange and competition. The connection between sociality and competition is something we will return to through the analysis of neo-liberalism in Chapter 5 and class in Chapter 6. But first, the present chapter will outline the key arguments of Weber’s writings on markets, before asking whether markets are sites of either meaningful social action or mere crowd behaviour; a question that returns us to the definition of social action advanced in the first chapter of Economy and Society.