Economics and the Space of Modernity:

Abstract This text was the original second chapter of the author's doctoral dissertation (Escobar ); this chapter was never included in the book that eventually grew from the dissertation (Escobar ). Although the chapter's contribution to debates on the economy are largely synthetic and certainly not original, the author wanted to publish it for a number of reasons. First, the alleged triumph of neo-liberal ideologies and the increase in depth and scope of market cultures at present make even more important the task of cultural analysis of economics and the economy. This paper was an effort in this direction, particularly to mapping the genealogies of what in the paper is called 'the Western economy'. Second, there have been some recent claims that the cultural analysis of economics and the economy has hardly been broached. References to Polanyi's foundational role in this respect are, of course, de rigueur, but one only needs to point at the pioneering work of Stephen Gudeman since the 1980s to dispute this claim. Third, the same cultural analysis is experiencing a much needed surge, with several groups today fully engaged with it from various – some times overlapping – perspectives. Finally, the impetus for this piece also comes from the creative efforts by a number of social movements in the world – such as some of the autonomistas in Argentina – to go even beyond 'rethinking' the economy to propose that what is needed is a new invention altogether. Keywords: cultures of economyanthropology of modernitygenealogyresistancethird world Acknowledgments The chapter on which this articled is based was largely written in 1983. It is important to place this text in the moment in which it was produced; these were the years, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in which studies of Foucauldian approaches (including on the now well-known notion of governmentality) were being developed in a multiplicity of contexts, including applications to the Third World, such as studies of development. The little known History of the Present newsletter, produced by graduate students at Berkeley between 1983 and 1986, was devoted to these debates. In anthropology, 'writing culture' and the critique of representation were being worked out; the 'ethnographies of resistance' was another trend that carried the day. These trends are reflected in this text. Some parts have been left out from this version, including long sections on epistemes, discipline and governmentality (all of which are well known by now), and a section on 'the economy as social practice', drawing largely on Taylor and Wittgenstein (which is perhaps rather obscure); asterisks indicate the places where sections have been left out. I would like to thank Larry Grossberg for his interest in the piece and for his willingness to print it in the journal. Notes See also the special issue of Development on 'The limits to economics' (1986, no. 3). Polanyi characterizes the economy as an 'instituted process'. We will adopt this definition, as well as Polanyi's concept of the market, in spite of the difficulties created by the fact that these definitions do not conform to either neo-classical or Marxist ones. See Polanyi (). Foucault defines the 'positive unconscious of knowledge' as 'a level that eludes the consciousness of the scientists and yet is part of scientific discourse … the rules of formation that are never formulated in their own right, but are to be found only in widely different theories, concepts and objects of study'. It defines in important ways the epistemological space specific to a given period (, p. xi). See also Braudel (, ). Most of this section is based on the works of Polanyi, Braudel, Hicks, Landes and Dobb listed below. This inquiry, then, differs from a strictly historical inquiry, or from those – such as those inspired by world-systems theory – which combine historical and sociological analysis. It attempts to blend historical, philosophical and sociological perspectives in an interdisciplinary fashion. See Hicks (). On the general aspects of the development of markets, see also Braudel () and Landes (), especially Landes' 'Introduction'. A powerful critique of the notion of surplus is found in Polanyi (). See Polanyi (1957a), esp. ch. 6, and also ref. 2. Polanyi's account of the commodity fiction is invoked by Taussig () in his recent study of resistance to capitalism in South America. A great deal of attention has been paid to the notion of articulation of modes of production. According to this notion, a social formation which contains a variety of forms and relations of production cannot be explained by referring to a single mode of production, but rather be seen as the sum of two or more articulated modes, with one of them usually being dominant. Polanyi's view, although not cast in these terms, is not without some resemblance to these newer notions, commonly associated with the names of Balibar, Althusser, Meilassoux, Amin and others. This two-step process of separation of the economy from religion and politics is discussed at length by Dumont (, p. 25). His argument has been summarized succinctly here. For an excellent analysis of theories of value in economics, see Dobb (). See Heidegger's () essays, 'The Question Concerning Technology', 'The Turning', and 'Science and Reflection'. Some of the implications of Heidegger's analysis, especially in relation to the status of the human sciences, are explored in Dreyfus (). Some of the recent works that relate local and global concerns (as examined by anthropology and political economy) include, besides the works by Taussig and Smith already cited, Comaroff (), Nash () and Ong (). To this list may be added Sahlins (1981), Fabian () and Todorov (), which, although not 'ethnographies of resistance', deal with issues relevant to the current debate in anthropology and political economy. 'Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination, for our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable. This, my friends, is the crux of our solitude' (García Márquez , p. 8). In Latin America, intellectual history and philosophy of history have not been as marginal to history and philosophy as they have tended to be in the Anglo-Saxon world. A significant tradition of intellectual history exists (e.g. L. Zea, E. O'Gorman, J.L. Romero, E. Mayas, J. Jaramillo, etc.), which is currently being invigorated by a younger generation of historians and philosophers. See Morse (). It should be pointed out that this work, originally written in English, is still awaiting publication in the English language. This point ('uneven development of ideology') courtesy of Jim O'Connor.