{"product_id":"the-architecture-of-markets-an-economic-sociology-of-twentyfirstcentury-capitalist-societies-9780691005225","title":"The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies.","description":"\u003cp\u003eMarket societies have created more wealth  and more opportunities for more people  than any other system of social organization in history. Yet we still have a rudimentary understanding of how markets themselves are social constructions that require extensive institutional support. This groundbreaking work seeks to fill this gap  to make sense of modern capitalism by developing a sociological theory of market institutions. Addressing the unruly dynamism that capitalism brings with it  leading sociologist Neil Fligstein argues that the basic drift of any one market and its actors  even allowing for competition  is toward stabilization.  The Architecture of Markets represents a major and timely step beyond recent  largely empirical studies that oppose the neoclassical model of perfect competition but provide sparse theory toward a coherent economic sociology. Fligstein offers this theory. With it he interprets not just globalization and the information economy  but developments more specific to American capitalism in the past two decades--among them  the 1980s merger movement. He makes new inroads into the theory of fields  which links the formation of markets and firms to the problems of stability. His political-cultural approach explains why governments remain crucial to markets and why so many national variations of capitalism endure. States help make stable markets possible by  for example  establishing the rule of law and adjudicating the class struggle. State-building and market-building go hand in hand.  Fligstein shows that market actors depend mightily upon governments and the members of society for the social conditions that produce wealth. He demonstrates that systems favoring more social justice and redistribution can yield stable markets and economic growth as readily as less egalitarian systems. This book will surely join the classics on capitalism. Economists  sociologists  policymakers  and all those interested in what makes markets function as they do will read it for many years to come.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651623182389,"sku":"ByrdShop_0691005222","price":155.84,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691005225.jpg?v=1781836570","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-architecture-of-markets-an-economic-sociology-of-twentyfirstcentury-capitalist-societies-9780691005225","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}