The Architecture of Markets

by Fligstein, Neil

• ISBN13: 9780691005225
• ISBN10: 0691005222
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Market societies have created more wealth, and more opportunities for more people, than any other system of social organization in history. Yet we still have a rudimentary understanding of how markets themselves are social constructions that require extensive institutional support. This groundbreaking work seeks to fill this gap, to make sense of modern capitalism by developing a sociological theory of market institutions. Addressing the unruly dynamism that capitalism brings with it, leading sociologist Neil Fligstein argues that the basic drift of any one market and its actors, even allowing for competition, is toward stabilization.The Architecture of Markets represents a major and timely step beyond recent, largely empirical studies that oppose the neoclassical model of perfect competition but provide sparse theory toward a coherent economic sociology. Fligstein offers this theory. With it he interprets not just globalization and the information economy, but developments more specific to American capitalism in the past two decades--among them, the 1980s merger movement. He makes new inroads into the ''theory of fields,'' which links the formation of markets and firms to the problems of stability. His political-cultural approach explains why governments remain crucial to markets and why so many national variations of capitalism endure. States help make stable markets possible by, for example, establishing the rule of law and adjudicating the class struggle. State-building and market-building go hand in hand.Fligstein shows that market actors depend mightily upon governments and the members of society for the social conditions that produce wealth. He demonstrates that systems favoring more social justice and redistribution can yield stable markets and economic growth as readily as less egalitarian systems. This book will surely join the classics on capitalism. Economists, sociologists, policymakers, and all those interested in what makes markets function as they do will read

Author Biography

Neil Fligstein is Professor of Sociology and Class of 1939 Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	xi
Preface	xiii
Bringing Sociology Back In	3	(22)
A Critique of the Existing Literature in the Sociology of Markets	6	(4)
Theoretical Questions for a Sociology of Markets	10	(5)
A Political-Cultural Approach	15	(5)
Structure of the Book	20	(1)
Normative Implications of the Political-Cultural Approach to the Sociology of Markets	21	(4)
PART I	25	(74)
Markets as Institutions	27	(18)
Market Institutions: Basic Definitions	28	(8)
State Building and Market Building	36	(6)
Power in Policy Domains and Market Institutions	42	(3)
The Politics of the Creation of Market Institutions	45	(22)
Political Structuring of Labor Market Institutions	53	(3)
Policy Domains and Market Regulation in Real Societies	56	(3)
Stability and Complexity	59	(3)
Implications for Research	62	(2)
Conclusion	64	(3)
The Theory of Fields and the Problem of Market Formation	67	(32)
Markets as Fields	67	(3)
The Goal of Action in Stable Markets	70	(5)
The Problem of Change and Stability in Markets	75	(11)
Links between Market Formation and States	86	(3)
Some Macro Implications of the Theory of Fields	89	(5)
Globalization and Market Processes	94	(3)
Conclusion	97	(2)
PART II	99	(140)
The Logic of Employment Systems	101	(22)
Employment Systems as Institutional Projects	103	(4)
Variations and Transformations in Employment Systems	107	(1)
The Dynamics of Systems of Employment Relations	108	(3)
Insights into Comparative Employment Systems	111	(6)
Research Agendas	117	(3)
Conclusion	120	(3)
The Dynamics of U.S. Firms and the Issue of Ownership and Control in the 1970s	123	(24)
Review of the Literature	124	(1)
Management versus Owner Control	125	(1)
Bank Control	126	(2)
Market Dynamics and Management Control	128	(2)
Hypotheses	130	(2)
Data and Methods	132	(4)
Results	136	(8)
Discussion and Conclusions	144	(2)
Appendix A	146	(1)
The Rise of the Shareholder Value Conception of the Firm and the Merger Movement in the 1980s	147	(23)
What Is to Be Explained?	150	(1)
Finance Economics	151	(2)
Manager, Owner, and Bank Control	153	(2)
The Crisis of the Finance Conception of Control and the Rise of the Shareholder Value Conception of Control	155	(2)
Hypotheses	157	(1)
Data and Methods	158	(4)
Results	162	(4)
Conclusion	166	(4)
Corporate Control in Capitalist Societies	170	(21)
Economic Theories and Mechanisms	172	(4)
Sociological Theories of Control	176	(5)
Comparative Cases	181	(8)
Conclusion	189	(2)
Globalization	191	(32)
Definitions of Globalization	193	(2)
Critique of Globalization Arguments	195	(1)
The Slow Expansion and Unevenness of Global Trade	196	(7)
Change or Continuity in the Organization of Production?	203	(3)
Does Globalization Cause Deindustrialization and Inequality?	206	(3)
Politics, Governments, and Financial Markets	209	(4)
Trade, Competition, Industrial Policy, and the Welfare State	213	(7)
Globalization and Neoliberalism as an American Project	220	(1)
Conclusion	221	(2)
Conclusions	223	(16)
Two Tales of One Industry	223	(5)
Stability and Efficiency	228	(3)
Efficiency, Stability, and Equity	231	(5)
Conclusion	236	(3)
Notes	239	(8)
Bibliography	247	(22)
Index	269