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 it for many years to come.
Author(s): Neil Fligstein
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 288
City: Princeton
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of Tables
Preface
1. Bringing Sociology Back In
A Critique of the Existing Literature in the Sociology of Markets
Theoretical Questions for a Sociology of Markets
A Political-Cultural Approach
Structure of the Book
Normative Implications of the Political-Cultural Approach to the Sociology of Markets
PART I
2. Markets as Institutions
Market Institutions: Basic Definitions
State Building and Market Building
Power in Policy Domains and Market Institutions
3. The Politics of the Creation of Market Institutions
Political Structuring of Labor Market Institutions
Policy Domains and Market Regulation in Real Societies
Stability and Complexity
Implications for Research
Conclusion
4. The Theory of Fields and the Problem of Market Formation
Markets as Fields
The Goal of Action in Stable Markets
The Problem of Change and Stability in Markets
Links between Market Formation and States
Some Macro Implications of the Theory of Fields
Globalization and Market Processes
Conclusion
PART I I
5. The Logic of Employment Systems
Employment Systems as Institutional Projects
Variations and Transformations in Employment Systems
The Dynamics of Systems of Employment Relations
Insights into Comparative Employment Systems
Research Agendas
Conclusion
6. The Dynamics of U.S. Firms and the Issue of Ownership and Control in the 1970s
Review of the Literature
Management versus Owner Control
Bank Control
Market Dynamics and Management Control
Hypotheses
Data and Methods
Results
Discussion and Conclusions
Appendix A
7. The Rise of the Shareholder Value Conception of the Firm and the Merger Movement in the 1980s
What Is to Be Explained?
Finance Economics
Manager, Owner, and Bank Control
The Crisis of the Finance Conception of Control and the Rise of the Shareholder Value Conception of Control
Hypotheses
Data and Methods
Results
Conclusion
8. Corporate Control in Capitalist Societies
Economic Theories and Mechanisms
Sociological Theories of Control
Comparative Cases
Conclusion
9. Globalization
Definitions of Globalization
Critique of Globalization Arguments
The Slow Expansion and Unevenness of Global Trade
Change or Continuity in the Organization of Production?
Does Globalization Cause Deindustrialization and Inequality?
Politics, Governments, and Financial Markets
Trade, Competition, Industrial Policy, and the Welfare State
Globalization and Neoliberalism as an American Project
Conclusion
10. Conclusions
Two Tales of One Industry
Stability and Efficiency
Efficiency, Stability, and Equity
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
