Socializing the Economy: Toward a Sociology of Contract

• In Event: 3411 - Economic Sociology Regular Session: Theoretical Perspectives

Abstract

Economic sociology has developed an elaborate analysis of the market over the last several decades, but has neglected contract as an institutional foundation for market relations. In this paper, we consider the reasons for – and consequences of – the absence of a developed concept of contract in contemporary economic sociology. We do so by tracing two alternative routes to “socializing the economy” associated with sociological and socio-legal traditions, respectively. The first of these approaches, represented by thinkers such as Durkheim and Polanyi, rests on Maine’s dichotomous understanding of “status” and “contract” as two distinct social orders. Accordingly, sociological approaches to socializing the economy purge contract of social content and then make it subordinate to social relations that regulate market exchange from the outside. The second of these approaches is represented by the writings of legal realists such as Hale and Cohen. Rather than endorsing a starkly dichotomous model of social development, legal realists treat status and contract as coterminous elements of social organization. Critically, because status and contract are intertwined in any given transaction, they do not operate on each other externally, but through the internal constitution of variable social relationships. Ultimately, we argue that this second approach furnishes the materials for a more adequate theorization of the economy as a domain of social life.

Authors

• Greta R. Krippner, University of Michigan

• Luis Flores, University of Michigan