Introduction

This chapter deals with market-oriented institutions, but they are not all "institutions" in the same sense. Albert Borgmann's sense of "institution" is that of a mechanism that remakes reality in the shape of an idea — in his case, the commodity. Austrian economists like Hayek who remain close to the spirit of the classical tradition stress the fluctuating nature of prices as literally whatever the particular traders happen to negotiate. At first Borgmann does not appear completely gloomy about throwing goods open to the market, though like many postmodern theorists he is mostly attracted, albeit ambivalently, to the sphere of choice thereby opened up. Colin Campbell does not speak the language of the will, but his analysis of the implicit morality of consumption in high capitalist societies resonates with it in some respects. Sombart and Veblen flourished when the difference between classical political economy and neo-classical economics was beginning to coalesce.