The Social Structures of the Economy

ISBN: 978-0-7456-2540-9

Paperback

180 pages

April 2005, Polity

Other Available Formats: Hardcover

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Brilliant study by the most original sociologist of post-war France, the late Pierre Bourdieu.
Challenges the assumptions of orthodox economic theory, showing that the market is effectively constructed by the state (e.g. which can decide whether to promote private housing or collective provision)
Contends that supply, demand, the market and even the buyer and seller are products of a process of social construction.
Argues that sociology and economics are in fact part of a single discipline, of which economic transactions are in the end merely one aspect.