Abstract?
One of the most consequential and peculiar developments in recent social science has been economists’ assumption of the responsibility for designing the digital platforms that increasingly structure social life. Moving beyond efficiency as a governing norm, these “tech economists” have claimed to advance transparency, fairness, respect for privacy, justice, and environmental sustainability of behalf of for-profit platforms. Yet the persistent framing of these interventions as efforts to “make markets work better” obscures their objects and stakes, raising questions about the justifications that sustain their ongoing expansion.
This talk disentangles the varying meaning of “markets” and conceptions of agency that underwrite these claims. It traces the historical trends that have aligned market discourse with digital platforms’ expanding zones of governance and, panning out, examines the broader implications of an era in which markets, data, and AI are routinely cast as remedies for social, political, and epistemic problems.