Economics operates through material devices and algorithms as much as beliefs.

Evidence

First, I want the terminology to reflect the way in which the strongest senses of “performativity” are subsets of a more general phenomenon: the incorporation of economics into the infrastructures of markets. … Second, the notion of “prophecy,” whether self-fulfilling or self-negating, can suggest that we are dealing only with beliefs and world views. While beliefs about markets are clearly important, an aspect of economics that is incorporated only into beliefs “in the heads” of economic actors may have a precarious status. A form of incorporation that is in some senses deeper is incorporation into algorithms, procedures, routines, and material devices. An economic model that is incorporated into these can have effects even if those who use them are skeptical of the model’s virtues, unaware of its details, or even ignorant of its very existence. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 95

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes performativity from mere beliefs by grounding it in material infrastructure — a key architectural move of the thesis.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s infrastructure-oriented work (trees/cigarettes/sacrifice) in that material embeddedness matters more than mental belief. — connects to: Economic theories are endogenous and actively shape the world they describe. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 122; Economics is generically performative when real-world actors actually use it. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 85; Economic theory embodied in devices performs and creates its own posited phenomena. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1196 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Economic theory embodied in devices performs and creates its own posited phenomena. #expands (0.90) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1196
• Economies of action get institutionalized into automated algorithms that modify behavior #exemplifies (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 939
• Economic theories function as analytic engines rather than exact copies of reality. #expands (0.85)
• Human cognitive limits make simplifying concepts and calculating devices constitutive of complex markets. #corroborates (0.85) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1195
• Economic concepts actively constitute the economic behavior they describe #corroborates (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 105
• Studying performativity forces attention to the very market objects economics analyzes. #expands (0.80) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 101
• Economics actively shapes the economy rather than merely describing it #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1987