Networks of power and barriers to entry: The organization of allocative practices

In the preceding chapters I have tried to portray early, nineteenth-century modernity as a societal constellation in which, initially, the modern imaginary signification prevails but is restricted to a limited number, and well-defined kind, of people. These boundaries are then broken and the limits upset, partly due to the increasing social permeation of the modern imaginary significations, partly in reaction to the disembedding consequences of this increasing permeation. The following chapters are devoted to a systematic analysis of the social configurations that emerged from the attempts to deal with the erosion of boundaries and to re-establish control over social practices.