Total Market/Mercado Total

The Libertarian Ideal, 2016

This article examines markets as structures independent of capitalist socio-economic organisation. It rethinks markets as economic tools that can be placed in radically different economic systems far removed from the normalities of capitalism. By examining how markets are shaped by five monopolies created by state intervention and artificial economies of scale that rely on massive subsidisation, I see how some of the fundamentals of capitalism, the factor markets and capital-labour relations, are reshaped in a conception of free markets that are not influenced by capitalist agency. I go on to see how the Austrian School's subject of the individual as an agent of subjective economic desires is changed when placed within structures of free, or freed, markets. The institutions of markets, the surplus value distribution and the multiple social relations that present themselves as possible under a regime of rethought markets shows this subject as instituted in a diverse economy of possibilities and existences. I then examine how, even under capitalism, such a diverse economy already exists on the peripheries and in the interstices of the modern economy.

My contribution to the Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy (2017)

‘Postmodern Philosophy and Market Anarchism: Allies or Enemies?’ aims to evaluate the extent to which postmodern philosophy can strengthen the case for market anarchism, as well as provide novel modes of praxis for combating power structures (including, but not limited to, the state). Examining the ideas of Foucault, Deleuze, Crenshaw, Derrida, Lyotard and Rorty amongst others, this paper represents a wide-ranging examination of how the two traditions can be mutually reinforcing, as well as why they are sometimes in conflict. Owing to the breadth of thinkers and topics covered, it is intended to be a preliminary foray into an area of research that holds promise for both market anarchists and those who subscribe to certain tenets of postmodern philosophy. The study in divided into three main chapters, each of which critically analyzes a shortcoming in market anarchist theory before exploring the ways in which postmodern philosophy may address that shortcoming. Chapter One discusses the importance of recognising non-state forms of hierarchy, whilst Chapter Two asks how market anarchists should go about judging whether any given hierarchy is acceptable. Finally, Chapter Three examines the ways in which postmodern philosophy can assist market anarchists in defending of a non-totalizing conception of society without the state.

Marketing Theory, 2019

This article interrogates the performative effects of mutualist ideas in the context of market-making. Mutualism is a variety of anarchism associated with the work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who argued for the centrality of market exchanges and mutual credit as a means for emancipating workers from capitalist exploitation. The discussion is informed by an ethnographic inquiry within a Local Exchange Trading System in Spain – the Moneda Social Puma – which illustrates how actors put mutualist ideas to work. This research makes three contributions: first, it frames a view of market multiplicity and plasticity that broadens the current scope of market studies beyond a managerialist focus. Second, it reveals how actors mobilise anarchist theories to shape – rather than escape – markets. Third, this work elucidates how actors negotiate and stabilise conflicting forms of valuation as mutualist ideas are implemented. In particular, we draw attention to a set of infrastructural practices an...

Competition & Change, 2021

New Political Science: A Journal of Politics and Culture, 35(4): 604-626., 2013

Since the mid-1980s, and particularly throughout the first decade of the 21st century, the imperative of capitalist competition has become a totalizing and all-pervasive logic expanding to ever more social domains and geographical areas around the world. Sustained by neoliberal competition regulation and other regulatory provisions, excessive competition (over-competition) in the process of capital accumulation has become a major global force with highly detrimental social and environmental downsides . From the vantage point of a historical materialist perspective, the article provides an explanatory critique of capitalist competition and the atomistic and reductionist social scientific precepts that serve to legitimize the neoliberal type of competition regulation . By critically engaging with principles and values central to anarchism, such as equity, solidarity, cooperation, mutual aid and environmental sustainability, the article seeks to outline an alternative vision to the ideas and social practices that have sustained the existing competition order thus far.