Markets sustain social bonds and moral codes even as they conceal exploitation

Evidence

The power of imagination has been at the core of capitalism’s ideology, binding people together in vastly unequal destinies throughout capitalism’s history. But while unfettered markets concealed labor value and exploitative relations of dependence, they also produced social bonds and suffused imagined communities with their distinctive moral codes. Imagination indexes the form of such bonds and summons desires; it inspires faith (and instills doubt) in uncertain futures. In doing so, it offers a “providential paradigm” of freedom, even if such freedom consigns people to destructive or sacrificial fates. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 162

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The tension — markets conceal labor exploitation yet still generate genuine social bonds and moral communities — resists easy summary.
• XREF: connects to: Market making enforces a reciprocity norm that sustains the market itself — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 87; Market ideology conceals exploitation by making exchange stand in for production; Generational obligation, not reciprocity, sustains moral discipline in trading communities. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 685 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Market ideology conceals exploitation by making exchange stand in for production #expands (0.85)
• Market relations are real yet structurally unable to express the underlying social labor #expands (0.80)
• Market making enforces a reciprocity norm that sustains the market itself #expands (0.78) — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures, 87
• Face-to-face repetition creates a moral economy enforcing cooperativeness on trading floors. #exemplifies (0.75) — Donald MacKenzie & Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory, 79
• Economic transactions are embedded in complex moral relations, not just rational numbers #corroborates (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 1043
• Generational obligation, not reciprocity, sustains moral discipline in trading communities. #complicates (0.72) — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 685
• Competitive market culture displaces moral self-reflection in traders. #complicates (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1468