An Economic Anthropological Exploration of Three Conflicts Over Market Value in the Contemporary U.S.

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This research addresses how individuals and groups in the contemporary U.S. measure and conceptualize economic value; that is, how they deploy ideas about worth, utility, and importance. Drawing on convention theory, and using ethnographic (interview-based) methods, it focuses on three contexts where systems of value are in contest: 1) debates over economic contributions of public sector work; 2) arguments over corporate responsibility that have resulted in the chartering of a new form of "Benefit Corporation"; and 3) an experiment with alternative forms of regional economic integration known as "Slow Money." This study will develop a model of how actors build consensus around new modes of evaluation. It uses convention theory - a framework that explores the way meaning is linked to habits, customs, routines, technologies, and standard practices - but extends that framework to focus on moments of contention at the interface of social spheres. The ultimate goal of the research is to provide grounding for more precisely targeted modes of evaluation to replace the monovalent measures that currently inform public policy. Systems of evaluation are central to policy formation across many spheres. Nobel prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen have argued that new systems of valuation will be critical to our ability to reshape a global economy facing widespread downturn. This task requires systematic study of economic contributions that are not included in measures of value such as Gross Domestic Product. By mapping and analyzing critical debates over "market value" and its alternatives, this study will offer a model of what is at stake in various frameworks for assessing value and of when and how systems of evaluation can change.