States, markets and an ethic of care

By Susan J. Smith. 2005

163 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The politics of welfare navigate between the entitlements dispensed within a shrinking sphere of ‘care-full’ state activity, and a growing demand for the informal, unpaid labour of caring individuals. Meanwhile, the dispassionate workings of the market are left surprisingly intact, as if they were given, not made. Yet, although market-making is most often infused with an individualised competitive imperative, whose presumptions are incompatible with an ethic of care, this is neither inevitable nor immutable. So as well as arguing against markets as they are, it is worth making a bid for what they might become. To this end, various (housing) examples draw attention to the differentiation and diversity of markets, highlighting their performativity, emphasising their heterogeneity, and identifying the multitude of normative ideas and practices that are and could be built into them. There is the possibility here of wresting a different ethic from markets: harnessing their emotional energies, reformatting their economy, and rethinking their social role. From this perspective, the multiplexity in markets is not just a new economic geography, or a social curiosity; it is a far-reaching political resource.

Subfields: Finance, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3d7650eb4b2502690671954440b0ae9f6552d900

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Finance

1. Sarah Hall
2. A. Amin
3. Nigel Thrift
4. C. Berndt
5. M. Boeckler
6. Susan J. Smith
7. Paul A. Langley
8. H. Bathelt

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Sarah Hall
2. C. Berndt
3. M. Boeckler
4. Nigel Thrift
5. A. Amin
6. Susan J. Smith
7. H. Chesbrough
8. Marcel Bogers

Citations in the corpus

• Cultural-economy and cities (2007, background): “…since even the most iron-like aspects of the macro-economy are all but this, as Callon (1998) and others (Mattelart, 2002; Lofgren, 2003; Smith, 2005; Thrift, 2005a) have shown by revealing the detailed clashes of enrolment and persuasion involved in making, and making count, textbook…”
• Geographies of money and finance I: Cultural economy, politics and place (2011, background): “Smith A, Swain A (2010) The global economic crisis, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: models of development and the contradictions of inter-”
• Geographies of circulation and exchange: constructions of markets (2009, background): “…papers criticizing the reduction of complex social processes to one-sided oppositions of informal and formal institutions (community vs. society; Storper, 2005), Jamie Peck’s (2005) critical assessment of the New Economic Sociology, or Ash Amin and Joanne Roberts’ (2008a) plea for a more…”
• Moral economies of food and geographies of responsibility (2009, background): “Recent commentators suggest, however, that morality and markets are mutually implicated (Jackson et al. 2000; Smith 2005; Kaiser and Lien 2006).”
• Owner-Occupation: At Home with a Hybrid of Money and Materials (2008, background): “More generally, while governments may feel it is wise to invest as much into housing as possible, and to use the gains to supplement earned incomes (Smith, 2005c), there isöin the current policy environment at leastöno guarantee that, once housing equity is set free, it will be used in the ways…”