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Fine tuning the Zelizer
view
Viviana Zelizer
Published online: 08 Feb 2011.
To cite this article: Viviana Zelizer (2000) Fine tuning the Zelizer view,
Economy and Society, 29:3, 383-389, DOI: 10.1080/03085140050084570
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Fine tuning the Zelizer view
Viviana Zelizer
Abstract
Fine and Lapavitsas accept my critique of neoclassical economics as well as my empiri-
cal ndings, but too hastily reject the arguments underlyng both of them. Despite
their complaints to the contrary, my work provides viable denitions of money and
markets, offers a theoretically motivated research program, demonstrates the hetero-
geneity of money and markets, deals with standard economic processes, and addresses
general theoretical issues. Within recent economic sociology, both context and
alternative approaches improve on the stark choice between neoclassical economics
and conventional Marxist political economy posed by Fine and Lapavitsas.
Keywords: money; markets; neoclassical economics; Marxist economics.
Neoclassical economics has come under increasing siege. In the past decade or
so, critics from a wide spectrum of disciplines (sociology, political science,
psychology, law, management studies, international relations, economics), and
from both sides of the Atlantic, have grown bolder in their complaints against
mainstream economic theorizing (varied examples include: Ben-Ner and
Putterman 1998; Bloch 1994; Callon 1998; Zelizer 1998; Smelser and
Swedberg 1994; Steiner 1999). In their provocative paper in this issue,
Markets and money in social theory: what role for economics?, Fine and
Lapavitsas join these critics with their own strongly argued alternative: Marxist
political economy.
In their attempt to rebut standard economic reasoning, Fine and Lapavitsas
welcome me as an ally who properly stands up against the sociologically blind
thrust of mainstream economics (p. 359). But rst they propose to give my
anaemic theoretical bloodstream a hearty Marxist transfusion. To be more
precise, they are willing to incorporate my critique of neoclassical economics and
my empirical work, but not the theoretical basis for either one. In turn, I
welcome their project to draw a different, interesting theory of markets and
Copyright 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
ISSN 0308-5147 print/ISSN 1469-5766 online
Economy and Society Volume 29 Number 3 August 2000: 383389
Viviana Zelizer, Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
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money from Marxs writing. However, Fine and Lapavitsass theoretical enthusi-
asm for a political economy framework blinds them to the emergence of newer
theoretical possibilities over the last decade or so. Let me therefore respond to
their statement in two parts: rst, reacting to specic criticisms of my view; and,
second, outlining alternative ways of explaining markets and monetary transac-
tions.
Fine and Lapavitsas most negative claims concerning my work cluster around
ve issues:
1 failure to dene money and markets adequately
2 an atheoretical, inductive research strategy
3 exaggeration of heterogeneity in money and markets
4 concentration on exceptional circumstances rather than standard economic
processes
5 neglect of available general theories, especially Marxist political economy.
First, the matter of denitions: Zelizer, Fine and Lapavitsas complain,
seems to approve of a highly exible notion of the market (p. 361). Given the
absence of a clear denition of money, they argue, Zelizer treats money ahis-
torically and asocially and offers no economic theory of money itself (p. 376).
Failure to provide such denitions of the market and of money, they claim,
makes my arguments poor in analytical rigour and clarity (p. 361).
True, none of the writings Fine and Lapavitsas cite contains an extensive
formal denition of money and markets. However, when it comes to markets, the
passages just adjacent to those they do cite clearly point towards a distinctive
conception of markets as sets of social relations in which actors transfer goods
and services while establishing price-quantity-quality schedules that govern
those transfers. Clearly such a denition leads to recognition that the kinds of
social relations and the kinds of transfers differentiate markets from each other.
When it comes to money, Fine and Lapavitsas confuse disapproval of my con-
ception with absence of any denition at all. After all, The Social Meaning of
Money says emphatically: Social monies certainly include officially issued coins
and bills, but they also include all objects that have recognized, regularized
exchange value in one social setting or another (1994: 21). Such a denition is
expansive. Yet it points to a range of related social phenomena. The fuller de-
nition of money owing from the various writings they cite runs like this:
Money is an abstraction that observers make from social interactions. It is a
matter of degree; to the extent that interactions transfer rights to goods and
services by means of tokens that could also serve transfers of other such rights,
we can call those tokens money. The more generalizable across social locations,
varieties of goods and services, interaction partners, types of rights, and physi-
cal forms of the token itself is that capacity to facilitate transfer of rights, the
more readily people recognize the token involved as monetary. International
currencies, nationally issued legal tenders, electronic monies, bank accounts,
and other highly liquid tokens of transferable rights represent one extreme of
384 Economy and Society
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a continuum running from such generalized forms to the narrowly limited
circuits of such other monies as credits in baby-sitting pools, casino chips, or
investment diamonds.
In haste to offer their competing view, Fine and Lapavitsas ignore the presence
of denitions and arguments of which they disapprove.
When it comes to research strategy, Fine and Lapavitsas while politely
acknowledging the value of my detailed and sophisticated case studies (p. 379)
dismiss the theoretical value of what is primarily an empirically based analy-
sis (p. 378). Two views of the relation between theory and evidence contend here.
Condent that they already possess a coherent general theory, Fine and Lapavit-
sas proceed deductively, seeking to apply their theory to available facts. Less con-
dent that we already know everything we need to know, I prefer to work back
and forth between theory and evidence. Readers will have to judge which strat-
egy works better.
Fine and Lapavitsas nd equally disturbing my emphasis on heterogeneity, in
particular my apparent disregard for moneys homogenizing inuence (p. 372).
They concede that it is the dual nature of monetization that must always be
emphasized universal and homogenized money creates scope for expressing
relations that are socially and culturally specic (p. 372). Yet moneys socially
bound variations, within Fine and Lapavitsass framework, are feeble attempts
to counter universalizing tendencies. The broader aspects and meaning of social
relations that are expressed through money, Fine and Lapavitsas tell us, nd
themselves trapped within the featurelessness of universal exchangeability (p.
367). Here they resuscitate the very claims for moneys universalizing force my
research has repeatedly challenged.
In sum, Fine and Lapavitsas insist both on a universal money and on the
causal priority of moneys utter fungibility. There is one money, they assert,
even though it assumes different forms (p. 377). My model of socially variable
currencies, they argue, gets the causal sequence backwards: We argue instead
that, precisely because it possesses a homogeneous aspect, money can uidly
express a variety of social relations (p. 360). Moneys universality however
means that it is incapable of projecting rened differentiation among these rela-
tions (p. 368).
This model of impoverished (p. 368) social differentiation does indeed lie at
the heart of our disagreement. In sharp contrast, I argue that every currency
attaches to a circuit of exchange and every circuit of exchange includes a con-
crete set of meaningful social relations. At the extreme, to be sure, we do nd
quite general monies. Electronic currencies, for example, do transcend social
location, multiply interaction partners, activate a variety of rights, and cover a
broad array of goods and services. Even they, however, attach to the small minor-
ity of humans who connect with the Internet. Territorial currencies do, indeed,
facilitate national coherence. Even the dollar and the euro, nevertheless, divide
as much as they unify.
A wide variety of monies, furthermore, attach to smaller circuits. Take the
Viviana Zelizer: Fine tuning the Zelizer view 385
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example of the growing local currency movements in, among other places, the
US, Britain, Australia, Canada, and Japan (see Gilbert and Helleiner 1999; Hart
2000). Local currencies are only one instance of differentiation. Consider as well
frequent-ier credits, telephone cards, transit cards, food stamps, and the new
digital monies privately issued by credit card companies and banks. In all these
cases, the currency in question connects a well-dened network of participants
and excludes many others.
1
All moneys are actually dual: they serve both general and local circuits.
Indeed, this duality applies to all economic transactions. Seen from the top,
economic transactions connect with broad national symbolic meanings and insti-
tutions. Seen from the bottom, however, economic transactions are highly dif-
ferentiated, personalized, and local, meaningful to particular relations. No
contradiction therefore exists between uniformity and diversity: they are simply
two different aspects of the same transaction. Just as people speak English in a
recognizably grammatical way at the same time that they pour individual and
personal content into their conversations, economic actors simultaneously adopt
universalizing modes and particularizing markers.
What about market homogeneity? Here again Fine and Lapavitsas complain
that my emphasis on non-economic differentiation between markets leads me
to ignore what economic content they have in common (p. 362). As with money,
they contend that it is the markets general properties that allow for hetero-
geneity across individual products (p. 373). Here we disagree dramatically.
Along with such authors as Harrison White, I claim that, except for common
properties that are true by denition, markets vary systematically in the way they
set prices, in the relations among producers, and in the kinds of transactions that
connect producers and consumers (White 1988). Indeed, Fine and Lapavitsas
implicitly concede this when they complain about my concentration on nal con-
sumption markets (p. 373). By their own showing, consumer markets, labour
markets, and producers good markets operate in distinctive ways. Within such
broad categories, further differentiation occurs according to locality, cultural
milieu, legal setting, and, yes, type of commodity. Far from being ahistorical and
asocial (p. 372) this perspective necessarily situates markets in their historical
and social context.
Fine and Lapavitsass fourth major complaint turns to the allegedly
extremely unusual (p. 373) character of my research sites. It is certainly true
that, in order to make my points, I chose market sites strategically. Those sites
ranged from life insurance to markets for children to households and welfare
economies. By Fine and Lapavitsass own principles, however, all markets should
share economic properties, so that hardly seems a valid objection. Despite those
principles, furthermore, by insisting on the distinction between my research
sites and the mainstream of economic life (p. 375) Fine and Lapavitsas rein-
force the common prejudice that serious economic life takes place only within
the worlds of rms and corporations. As economist Julie Nelson points out, the
issues that end up on the non-market, social side of the divide tend to be con-
sidered less central or important than those on the market, economic side . . .
386 Economy and Society
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surely something important is lost when this separation is pursued unchecked
(1998: 33).
In any case, let us look at my strategy. Why, for example, examine household
or welfare economies? I deliberately chose areas where corrupting effects of
money and market penetration should, in principle, be most devastating. Given
prevailing hostile-worlds theories that consider any contact between personal
ties and money as inevitably commodifying, households and welfare economies
should be especially vulnerable. Instead, I demonstrated the social vigour of such
economies as people use money and market transactions in the course of cre-
ating and maintaining meaningful social relations.
Fine and Lapavitsass fth and nal complaint, however, is probably their
most heartfelt. Considering its availability, why did I ignore the resources of
Marxist theory as an answer to the questions I was raising? In particular, they
lament my analytical neglect of the nature of the commodity (p. 373), along
with disregard for any discussion of capital not only as the most developed
source of commodity production but also in its detailed functioning (p. 373).
Fine and Lapavitsas stress this point so strongly that in a number of their criti-
cisms the only weakness in my analysis they actually identify is my failure to
adopt their point of view. Note their claim that Zelizer is negligent of econ-
omics (p. 372). They should have said negligent of Marxist economics. It is sig-
nicant, they declare, that her focus is upon the amorphous market rather than
the nature of the commodity as use value and value. Furthermore, she neglects
(exchange) value and is preoccupied with use value. This boils down to a com-
plaint that I have neglected their preferred interpretation.
By doing so, they contend, I offer no serious challenge to neo-classical domi-
nance. It is arguable, they conclude, that such a strategy [mine] to defend soci-
ology against the incursions of mainstream economics is already proving
ineffectual (p. 379). Only Marxist political economy, it seems, will do the job.
Ultimately, Fine and Lapavitsas assume that there are only two possibilities
in analysing economic life: either one accepts neoclassical economics as a valid
account of economic processes or one turns to the only viable alternative: con-
ventional Marxist political economy. However, they ignore the fact that, in the
large space between those two, a variety of institutional, relational, and neo-
Marxist alternatives have started to emerge.
Within economic sociology, two important positions lie outside both neo-
classical economics and conventional Marxist political economy. One of them
species and analyses contexts within which well-known economic activities go
on. Acontext approach identies features of social organization that work as facil-
itators of or constraints on economic action. This position is intent on revamp-
ing economists portrayals of individual and collective decision making, for
example by specifying conditions other than short-term gain that inuence
decisions. Advocates of context often speak of the embeddedness of economic
phenomena in social processes, and often refer to interpersonal networks when
they do so.
Another school of thought takes greater risks by attempting to develop
Viviana Zelizer: Fine tuning the Zelizer view 387
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alternative models, drawing on ideas about culture, institutions, networks, and
organizational processes. In the alternative perspective, sociologists propose
competing accounts of economic transactions. Rather than expanding the econ-
omic approach or complementing it, one prominent view argues that, in all areas
of economic life, people are creating, maintaining, symbolizing, and transform-
ing meaningful social relations. My own work follows such a line. Necessarily
this body of thought is more fragmentary and experimental but it includes highly
promising attempts at synthesis.
A full survey of alternatives would include, among others, the efforts of
Mitchell Abolaa (1996), Wayne Baker (1987), Bernard Barber (1995), Jens
Beckert, (1996), Richard Biernacki (1995), Pierre Bourdieu (1997) Ronald Burt
(1998), Nicole Woolsey Biggart (1989), Michel Callon (1998), Bruce Carruthers
(1996), Randall Collins (1997), Paul DiMaggio and Hugh Louch (1998), Frank
Dobbin (1995), Nigel Dodd (1994), Wendy Espeland (1998), Neil Fligstein
(1996), Mark Granovetter (1995 [1974]), Mauro Guillen (2000), Geoffrey
Ingham (1996), Calvin Morrill (1995), Jan Pahl (1999), Alejandro Portes (1995),
Charles Smith (1989), Supriya Singh (1997), Arthur Stinchcombe (1983), Chris
Tilly and Charles Tilly (1998), Bruce Western (1997), Robert Wuthnow (1996),
and David Stark (1990). As it happens, a number of these authors draw on
insights of Marxist political economy. Instead of deducing money and markets
from established Marxist theory, however, these searchers for alternatives stand
out for their insistence on confronting existing theory with carefully assembled
evidence about the actual operation of money and markets. I gladly join their
search for superior general explanations of economic processes.
Note
1 What is more, the rapid disintegration of the rouble as the money of account in the
former Soviet Union demonstrates the complexity and fragility of the social infrastruc-
ture supporting any particular general currency (Woodruff 1999).
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