ABSTRACT
Boundaries between the state and the private interests of the market remain the pillars of capitalist society East and West, but with remarkable differences even between major trading partners. One key to the extension of market relations is the reconstruction of trust ensuring the confidence necessary to sustain ties between producer and consumer. A transition from status to contract, from custom to legal or “institutional” precedent ensures the reliability of large-scale, impersonal commercial transactions distinguishing modern capitalist trade. A dialectic of society and market unfolds in the transformation from subsistence production to motives of gain, and from economies enmeshed in social systems of reciprocity and redistribution to self-regulating market economies. Complementary processes of “incorporation” and “peripheralization” insure the integration of new areas into a world system. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
