Calculating Economic Life

The rediscovery of the economy as a legitimate object of sociological and cultural enquiry is in full swing. This is long overdue, and follows a remarkable neglect of such issues for many decades. Organization theorists, sociologists and others have long studied organizations, institutions and networks. But a focus on the constitutive or performative role of calculative practices, and their role in the formation of markets and market relations, is more recent. This paper endorses much of the spirit of this recent rediscovery of the economy and economic relations, and suggests a framework for taking forward this overall agenda. First, the paper offers a brief reminder of the curiously punctuated history of sociological concerns with economic calculation. Second, it draws attention to the specificity of accounting as one particular mode of calculation, and reviews the range of studies that have sought to understand and analyse its constitutive capacities. Rather than appealing to economics as the sole or primary constitutive machine for the construction of the economy, it suggests a more differentiated and nuanced view of the range of expertises and modes of calculation that constitute the economy, markets and associated modes of power. Finally, the paper argues for a particular way of analysing the economy and its constituent practices. Most generally, this means suggesting a focus on the governing of economic life, the linkages and interdependencies between calculative practices and programmes for governing, and the assemblages formed.