Material Markets: How Economic Agents Are Constructed

Material Markets The Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies are jointly organized by Oxford University Press and the Saïd Business School. Every year a leading international academic is invited to give a series of lectures on a topic related to management education and research, broadly defined. The lectures form the basis of a book subsequently published by Oxford University Press. Clarendon Lectures in Management Studies: The Modern Firm Organizational Design for Performance and Growth John Roberts Managing Intellectual Capital Organizational, Strategic, and Policy Dimensions David Teece The Political Determinants of Corporate Governance Political Context, Corporate Impact Mark Roe The Internet Galaxy Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society Manuel Castells Brokerage and Closure An Introduction to Social Capital Ron Burt Reassembling the Social An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory Bruno Latour Gatekeepers The Role of the Professions in Corporate Governance John C. Coffee Science, Innovation, and Economic Growth (forthcoming) Walter W. Powell The Logic of Position, The Measure of Leadership Position and Information in the Market (forthcoming) Joel Podolny Global Companies in the 20th Century (forthcoming) Leslie Hannah Material Markets How Economic Agents Are Constructed Donald MacKenzie 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 2 6 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press 2009 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–927815–2 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Barbara, Moyra, and Robin This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Acknowledgements List of Figures viii x 1. Introduction 1 2. Ten Precepts for the Social Studies of Finance 8 3. Assembling an Economic Actor with Iain Hardie 37 4. Derivatives: The Production of Virtuality