Category: Markets

Corporate Planning in the Coronavirus Economy

Terry Hathaway3 Comments

woman-wearing-mask-in-supermarket-3962289The global pandemic and associated developing global recession are calling into question a whole range of economic truths and demanding novel solutions to various interlinked societal problems. In this blog post, I want to connect what we鈥檙e currently seeing in the retail sector during this pandemic to deep-seated narratives about the nature of economic exchange, in particular to the notion of 鈥渢he market鈥�.听

The market is one of the most dominant concepts for making sense of the social world, primarily because of the prestige of the economics discipline and the elevation of the market concept by the discipline (albeit in a highly abstract manner). At its most basic, it paints the economic sphere as akin to a marketplace, where there is a level playing field and rivals compete for custom primarily through having the keenest of prices. Other, more complex, ideas often get laid over this concept, such as the market pricing mechanism allowing supply and demand to equilibrate, price signals communicating complex information to market participants, and, as such, the market allowing for decentralised decision making led by consumer demands. (For a much (much) fuller account of the market concept, see .)

However, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic increased demand for basic goods 鈥� such as toilet roll, hand sanitiser and flour 鈥� has put a strain on the distribution of these goods and has engendered a response quite dissimilar to the narrative of the economic system as a competitive, decentralised, profit-maximising market. What we have seen, instead, is retailers working as sites of governance in order to ensure a degree of equity in the distribution of resources.听Read More »

Don鈥檛 Buy the 鈥淢arketplace of Ideas鈥�

Terry HathawayLeave a comment

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Economic imagery pervades societal discourse. Part of this imagery projects markets as existing everywhere; the common societal parlance sees talk of the car market, the grocery market, the computer market, or, simply, the market. Yet, excepting traditional marketplaces or medinas, these markets have no physical manifestation. Unlike with other major social institutions there is no where to visit; there is no headquarters. Instead, markets are said to exist when there are competitors in the provision of services or goods and where each competitor has a fair and equal chance of succeeding. The market, then, exists in a metaphorical, rather than physical, sense – it implies that the capitalist system operates diffusely like a marketplace, rather than there being an actual marketplace in which economic transactions take place.

The further extension of economic imagery has seen the market metaphor applied to the provision of political and economic ideas, with the notion being that there exists a level-playing field on which ideas are free to compete and that this competition will weed out weaker ideas. Hence, 鈥渘o platforming鈥� of racist or homophobic speakers should be staunchly opposed as it will impede the competitive destruction of abhorrent ideas. An important ancillary notion is that any idea that has come to be orthodox received wisdom has justly achieved this status through free and fair competition in the marketplace of ideas.听

The problems with this account of the ideational development of society are legion, but I鈥檒l limit myself to explaining just three, namely 1) product heterogeneity, 2) distribution of ideas, and 3) production of ideas.Read More »

The Green New Deal: Whither Capitalism?

G眉ney I艧谋kara3 Comments

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By G眉ney I艧谋kara听and

The Green New Deal resolution by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey sparked an immense amount of discussion on all layers of political discourse, national and international. The way Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and many others phrase the problem in the broader context of social, economic, and environmental grievances caused by capitalism is crucial for setting the terms of debate and struggle. This opens up space the left can use to address such issues in a systematic way rather than being content with symptomal healing. In fact, theoretical and grounds. In this piece, we build on those contributions, and unpack the dynamics inherent to the capitalist system that would need to be addressed in the ongoing discussions. We also shed light on the limitations of a market-based and growth-centered approach to tackling climate destabilization, while offering other domains of political intervention such as property relations and demarketization of subsistence.Read More »

Harvesting data: Who benefits from platformization of agricultural finance in Kenya?

Gianluca Iazzolino8 Comments

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By听Gianluca Iazzolino听and听.

Getting access to credit is a critical challenge for small-holder farmers all over Sub-Saharan Africa . A new breed of financial-technology firms (fintech) promises to address this issue, claiming that digital technologies can lower the barriers for borrowers and cut transaction costs for lenders. As part of our, we have been examining these claims, studying how tech companies translate them into business initiatives and exploring the implications for knowledge production, economic growth and value redistribution.

In rural Kenya, fintech innovations are premised on greater efficiency and transparency and inspired by narratives of digital disintermediation. Similarly to what argued for migrant remittances by Vincent Guermond in a previous post of this blog series , digital lenders harness data (extracted through digital infrastructures) and algorithms to make farmers more legible and, therefore, more predictable. In order to expand their pool of data, Kenyan fintechs are increasingly embedding themselves into inter-connected digital infrastructures, or platforms. These platforms provide farmers with end-to-end solutions, and thereby bundle together financial services with the provision of agricultural inputs and information extension services. In so doing, lenders recalibrate and harmonize their risk-assessment procedures, and construct an ideal type of farmer whose financial behaviours and importance in the local value chain can be clearly pinned down.Read More »

Financialising migration? Remittances, algorithms and digital finance

vincentguermond2 Comments

photo-1492940664705-726225a992a9.jpegHow are things 鈥渄atafied?鈥� This blog post aims to answer this question by offering a critical reflection on a wide range of recent initiatives that attempt to 鈥渄atafy鈥� remittances, i.e. leverage migrants鈥� and recipients鈥� money as a means to facilitate access to digital financial products and services for individuals and households, with a specific focus on Ghana. A handful of scholars have started to critically assess the political economy of the 鈥渇inancialisation of remittances鈥�, calling into question an agenda that is animated not by the needs of migrant men and women but rather the political and financial concerns of a broad coalition of global and national actors relating to the socio-spatial expansion of markets (Datta, ; Cross, 听; Kunz, ; Hudson, ; Zapata, ). Here, I want to focus on the yet neglected aspect of the construction of these remittance markets, rather than treating financialization as 鈥渁n explanation in and of itself鈥� (Fields, :119).

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Market Forecasting: A Sensitive Practice at the Heart of Neoliberal Capitalism

stefanleinsLeave a comment

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This article was originally posted on .

Since the emergence of modern financial markets, financial analysts have played a critical role in producing visions of 鈥渢he economy鈥� and its future development. As experts, they analyze market developments and predict future scenarios that enable other financial market participants to speculate on the rise or fall of stock prices, the success or failure of particular investment products, and the growth or decline of entire national economies.听The substance of the analysts鈥� valuation and forecasting practices is, however, heavily disputed among economists. In neoclassical economic theory, the assumption that markets are informationally efficient has challenged the legitimacy of the work of financial analysts since the establishment of the efficient market hypothesis as a central paradigm in the mid 1960s. Alternative schools of thoughts 鈥� such as new institutional or behavioral economics 鈥� have criticized this paradigm. However, they have also argued that the degree of uncertainty, which is inherent to financial markets, makes prediction impossible.Read More »

Consuming development: Capitalism, economic growth and everyday life

Arve Hansen2 Comments

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With the consumption patterns in rich countries being more unsustainable than ever and the consumption of the 鈥榚merging middle classes鈥� increasing rapidly, it is about time 鈥榗onsumption and development鈥� becomes a field of study. Such a field would necessarily be interdisciplinary and combine analyses of everyday life and the structures of capitalist development. A useful starting point could be found at the intersection of theories of practice and systems of provision.Read More »

The Power of the Market

desmondmcneill1 Comment

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鈥淭he 鈥榤arket鈥� is a bad master, but can be a good servant.鈥�
– (1993: 420)

In the world today, more and more interpersonal interactions are replaced by market transactions. The market system is both an economic and a cultural phenomenon, yet we seem to be hardly aware of the values that are bound up in it. This phenomenon is manifest at many levels: from the family, through the neighbourhood and the enterprise, to the nation and the globe. If there is such a thing as global ethics, I suggest, then they are 鈥� like it or not 鈥� the ethics of the market. My purpose here is to elaborate this claim, and to assess its implications. I shall distinguish between the market as a theoretical construct in economics, and the market as a social institution.

My main hypothesis can be briefly stated as follows: the most convincing ethical argument currently being made in favour of the market is its neutrality. Whether the market is in fact neutral may be disputed. But if one accepts this claim, it implies that the market is amoral, rather than immoral, and there remain, I suggest, two objections to allowing the market ethic to prevail. The first is that this is an abrogation of moral responsibility. It implies delegating decisions of major social and material significance to powers which are beyond our control, and whose outcome is uncertain. Second, the neutrality of the market comes at a cost in social and human terms; social relations between persons are replaced by contractual relations between economic agents.Read More »