The pre-eighteenth-century market functioned as a site of justice, not truth

Evidence

Let’s put it more dearly. The market, in the very general sense of the word, as it operated in the Middle Ages, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was, in a word,essentially-a site of justice;-Inwhat sense was it a site of justice? In several-senses. In the first place it was, of course, invested with extremely prolific and strict regulations: it was regulated with.regard to the objects brought to market, their type of manufacture, their origin, the duties to be paid, the procedures of sale, and, of course, the prices fixed~ So, the market was a site invested with regulations. It was also a site of justice in the sense that the sale price fixed in the market was seen, both by theorists and in practice, as a just price, or at any rate a price that should be the just price, that is to say a price that was to have a certain relationship with work performed, with the needsofi:1ie merchants, and, of course, with the consumers’ needs and possibilities. The market was a site ofjustice to such an extent that it had to be a privileged site of distributive justice, since as you know, for at least some basic products; like food products, the rules of the market operated to ensure that, if not all, then at least some of the poorest could buy things as well as those who were more well-off. So in this sense the market was a site of distributive justice. Finally, what was it that essentially had to be ensured in the market, by the market, or rather by the regulations of the market, and which makes it a site of justice? Was it the truth of prices, as we would say now? Not at all. What had to be ensured was the absence of fraud. In other words,.it was the protection of the buyer. — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 321

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what ‘market as site of jurisdiction/justice’ means before Foucault contrasts it with the later ‘site of veridiction’.
• XREF: connects to: Markets are products of truth struggles, not validators of truth — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 288; Pre-modern commerce ran on reputation and custom, not advertising. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 81; Medieval European commerce was governed by private merchant law, not state law — PAUL R. MILGRO, PAUL R. MILGRO - THE ROLE OF…, 28 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Neoliberalism makes the market, not experts, the arbiter of truth #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 927
• Pre-modern commerce ran on reputation and custom, not advertising. #corroborates (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 81
• Medieval European commerce was governed by private merchant law, not state law #corroborates (0.75) — PAUL R. MILGRO, PAUL R. MILGRO - THE ROLE OF…, 28