The Great Performation: Economic Design Versus Social Design

The Great Performation:

Economic Design versus Social Design

Philippe Steiner

Université Paris – Sorbonne and Institut Universitaire de France

philippe.steiner@paris-sorbonne.fr

There are now a significant number of studies done on the performativity of economics — to use Michel Callon’s words — according to which economics as a science is actually not describing the state of economic affairs, but performing its own principles about the functioning of the economy.

The topic of this communication is to suggest a larger view of the performativity thesis in combining Callon’s and Polanyi’s approaches. In his Great Transformation (1944), Polanyi explained how much political economy contributed to the creation of the market system; however, he added that there existed as well counterforces protecting the society from such market system. Accordingly, the communication claims that there is a “Great Performation” at work. With the development of design economics, matching markets, economists are able to create market institutions that perform economics; but, on the other, alternative principles of exchange are as well designed in order to perform gift-giving behaviors. This side of the performation of social sciences through the creation of institutions of exchange should be taken into account.

The communication will first explain how Callon’s and Polanyi’s views can be combined to understand the role of played by social sciences, whether economics or sociology, in the functioning of this “Great performation”. Then, the communication will explain how the two different forces are actually at work, first in the domain of financial markets and auctions, second in the domain of transplantation of human body parts. This part of the communication will be based on the current studies done on financial markets (notably by Donald McKenzie) and on my own work on organ transplantation.