Talk of Markets
This paper examines “market talk” as a pervasive and flexible cultural tool. We analyze two cases in which the market is invoked as a justification: employers’ pay-setting practices and the exclusion of unpaid housework from calculations of gross domestic product. Employers interpret a candidate’s past salary as “the market price” indicating that individual's value, and thus use salary history as the basis for salary offers. National income statisticians argue that the absence of market prices for housework renders housewives' true economic value uncalculable. We identify three key features of market talk: authority, credibility, and accessibility. These features offer a framework for understanding why actors invoke markets and with what effects. Beyond understanding how culture constitutes or affects markets, economic sociology must also understand the market as a cultural object and, in particular, as a potent and gendered form of justification.