Monetary and financial markets remain inseparable from the economy of regard

Evidence

Enrichment of conventional models of the rational actor also seems necessary, even though Callon, as noted above, rejects it. As he himself concedes, the “cool[ing], reduc[ing] and fram[ing]” (Callon 1998, p. 50) of economic agents is never complete or stable. In consequence, “How can the emergence and formatting of calculative agencies be explained?” is not, as Callon asserts, “the only question worth posing” (Callon 1998, p. 51). The critical necessary enrichment is the recognition that the monetary economy is ultimately inseparable from the “economy of regard” (Offner 1997), at least in the Chicago derivatives exchanges and in almost all the markets in which the issue has been researched in any detail … Even in financial markets, the apparent epitomes of self-interested, rational individualism, human beings have remained mutually susceptible (in the sense of Barnes 1992), and reputation and respect have mattered. With the aid of economic theory, of technology, and of much else, a passable version of homo œconomicus can be and has been configured cognitively, so to speak. Whether he can be configured morally, out of real men and women, remains an open question. — Donald MacKenzie & Yuval Millo, Constructing a Market, Performing Theory, 201

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the performativity literature (Callon, MacKenzie) and to economic sociology’s critique of the rational-actor model; central to the reader’s interest in financialization as performance. — connects to: Financial instruments shape markets rather than merely read them — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 401; Market-mediated exchange is only one particular case of economy — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 893
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how exactly does technology/economics configure homo economicus cognitively but not morally? What would a morally configured version look like in real markets?

Related

• Markets can be performatively constructed by agents who are not atomistic homo economicus (similarity 0.79)
• Economics simplifies and disembeds market participants to become applicable. (similarity 0.79)
• Economic performativity rests on human cognitive limits and mutual susceptibility (similarity 0.79)
• Purely atomistic economic actors may only exist as software, not humans. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Market-mediated exchange is only one particular case of economy #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 893
• Financial instruments shape markets rather than merely read them #expands (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 401