4 Principles of

an Economic Anthropology
Pierre Bourdieu

To break with the dominant paradigm [in eco- Though we are here stressing the constants, we do not
nomics], we must attempt to construct a realist overlook the fact that capital in its various species
definition of economic reason as an encounter be- varies depending on the particularity of each subfield
tween dispositions that are socially constituted (in (corresponding to what is ordinarily referred to as a
relation to a field) and the structures, themselves “sector” or a “branch” of industry), that is, depend-
socially constituted, of that field. In doing so, we ing on the history of the field, on the state of devel-
need to take note, within an expanded rationalist opment (and, in particular, on the degree of concen-
vision, of the historicity constitutive of agents and tration) of the industry considered and on the
of their space of action. particularity of the product. At the end of the huge
study he conducted of the pricing practices of various
American industries, W. H. Hamilton related the idio-
THE STRUCTURE OF THE FIELD syncratic character of the different branches (that is to
say, of the different fields) to the particularities of the
Agents, that is to say, in this case firms, create histories of their emergence,2 each being characterized
the space, that is to say, the economic field, which by its own mode of functioning, its specific traditions,
exists only through the agents that are found with- and its particular way of making pricing decisions.3
in it and that deform the space in their vicinity,
conferring a certain structure on it. In other The force attached to an agent depends on its
words, it is in the relationship between the various various “strengths,” sometimes called “strategic
“field sources,” that is to say between the different market assets,” differential factors of success (or
production firms, that the field and the relations of failure), which may provide it with a competitive
force that characterize it are engendered.1 More advantage, that is to say, more precisely, on the
concretely, it is the agents, that is to say, the firms, volume and structure of the capital the agent pos-
defined by the volume and structure of specific sesses in its different species: financial capital (ac-
capital they possess, that determine the structure tual or potential), cultural capital (not to be con-
of the field that determines them, that is, the state fused with “human capital”), technological capital,
of the forces exerted on the whole set of firms en- juridical capital and organizational capital (including
gaged in the production of similar goods. These the capital of information about the field), com-
firms, which exert potential effects that are variable mercial capital, social capital, and symbolic capital.
in their intensity and direction, control a section of Financial capital is the direct or indirect mastery
the field (“market share”), the size of which in- (through access to the banks) of financial re-
creases with the size of their capital. As for con- sources, which are the main condition (together
sumers, their behavior would be entirely reduced with time) for the accumulation and conservation
to the effect of the field if they did not have a cer- of all other kinds of capital. Technological capital is
tain interaction with it (as a function of their— the portfolio of scientific resources (research po-
quite minimal—inertia). The weight (or energy) tential) or technical resources (procedures, apti-
associated with an agent, which undergoes the ef- tudes, routines, and unique and coherent know-
fects of the field at the same time as it structures how, capable of reducing expenditure in labor or
that field, depends on all the other points and the capital or increasing its yield) that can be deployed
relations between all the points, that is to say, on in the design and manufacture of products. Com-
the entire space. mercial capital (sales power) relates to the mastery
76 Bourdieu
of distribution networks (warehousing and trans- dominant firms exert their pressure on the domi-
port), and marketing and after-sales services. Social nated firms and on their strategies: they define the
capital is the totality of resources (financial capital regularities and sometimes the rules of the game,
and also information, etc.) activated through a by imposing the definition of strengths most fa-
more or less extended, more or less mobilizable vorable to their interests and modifying the entire
network of relations that procures a competitive environment of the other firms and the system of
advantage by providing higher returns on invest- constraints that bear on them or the space of pos-
ment.4 Symbolic capital resides in the mastery of sibles offered to them.
symbolic resources based on knowledge and recog- The tendency for the structure to reproduce it-
nition, such as “goodwill investment,” “brand loy- self is immanent to the very structure of the field:
alty,” and so on; as a power that functions as a the distribution of strengths governs the distribu-
form of credit, it presupposes the trust or belief of tion of chances of success and of profits through
those upon whom it bears because they are dis- various mechanisms, such as the economies of scale
posed to grant it credence (it is this symbolic or “barriers to entry” resulting from the permanent
power that Keynes invokes when he posits that an disadvantage with which new entrants have to cope
injection of money is effective if agents believe it to or the operating costs they have to meet or the ac-
be so).5 tion of all kinds of “uncertainty-reducing institu-
The structure of the distribution of capital and tions,” to use Jan Kregel’s expression,7 such as wage
the structure of the distribution of costs, itself and debt contracts, controlled prices, supply and
linked mainly to the scale and degree of vertical in- trading agreements, or “mechanisms which provide
tegration, determine the structure of the field, that information on the potential actions of the other
is to say, the relations of force among firms: the economic agents.” It follows that, by virtue of the
mastery of a very large proportion of capital (of regularities inscribed in the recurrent games that
the overall energy) in effect confers a power over are played out in it, the field offers a predictable
the field, and hence over the firms least well en- and calculable future and agents acquire in it trans-
dowed (relatively) in terms of capital; it also gov- missible skills and dispositions (sometimes called
erns the price of entry into the field, and the dis- “routines”) that form the basis of practical antici-
tribution of the opportunities for profit. The pations that are at least roughly well founded.
various species of capital do not act only indirectly, Because it is a particularity of the economic field
through prices; they exert a structural effect, be- that it authorizes and fosters the calculating vision
cause the adoption of a new technique or the con- and the strategic dispositions that go with it, one
trol of a larger market share, et cetera, modifies the does not have to choose between a purely struc-
relative positions and the yields of all the species of tural vision and a strategic vision: the most con-
capital held by other firms. sciously elaborated strategies can be implemented
By contrast with the interactionist vision, which only within the limits and in the directions as-
knows no other form of social efficacy than the signed to them by the structural constraints and by
“influence” directly exerted by one enterprise (or the practical or explicit knowledge—always un-
person entrusted with representing it) over anoth- equally distributed—of those constraints (the in-
er through some form of “interaction,” the struc- formational capital afforded to the occupants of a
tural vision takes account of effects that occur out- dominant position—particularly through presence
side of any interaction: the structure of the field, on company boards or, in the case of banks,
defined by the unequal distribution of capital, that through the data provided by those requesting
is, the specific weapons (or strengths), weighs, credit—is, for example, one of the resources that
quite apart from any direct intervention or manip- make it possible to choose the best strategies for
ulation, on all the agents engaged in the field; and capital management). Neoclassical theory, which
the worse placed they are within that distribution, refuses to take structural effects and, a fortiori, ob-
the more it restricts the space of possibles open to jective power relations into account, is able to ex-
them. The dominant is the one that occupies a po- plain the advantages accorded to those with the
sition in the structure such that the structure acts highest capital by the fact that, being more diver-
on its behalf. It is through the weight they possess sified, having greater experience and a greater rep-
within this structure, more than through the direct utation (and hence more to lose), they offer the
interventions they may also make (in particular guarantees that enable capital to be provided to
through the “interlocking directorates” that are a them at a lower cost, all simply for reasons of eco-
more or less distorted expression of it),6 that the nomic calculation. And it will no doubt be object-
 Economic Anthropology 77

ed that it is more parsimonious and rigorous to in- the agent as a calculating atom, able to cohabit
voke the “disciplinary” role of the market as an with the mechanistic vision, and according to
agency ensuring optimal coordination of prefer- which the economic and social order can be re-
ences (by virtue of individuals being forced to sub- duced to a host of interacting individuals, most
mit their choices to the logic of profit maximiza- often interacting on a contractual basis. Thanks to
tion on pain of being eliminated) or, more simply, a series of postulates fraught with consequences,
the price effect. notably the decision to treat firms as isolated
Now the notion of the field breaks with the ab- decision-makers maximizing their profits,9 some
stract logic of the automatic, mechanical, and in- industrial organization theorists transfer to the
stantaneous determination of prices in markets in collective level, such as that of the firm (which, in
which unfettered competition prevails:8 it is the reality, itself functions as a field) the model of indi-
structure of the field, that is to say, the structure of vidual decision-making on the basis of a conscious
relations of force (or power relations) among firms calculation, consciously oriented toward profit
that determines the conditions in which agents maximization (some readily accept that the model
come to decide (or negotiate) purchase prices (of is unrealistic, recognizing, for example, that the
materials, labor etc.) and selling prices (we see also firm is a “nexus of contract,” though without de-
in passing that, overturning entirely the usual riving any consequences from this). In this way,
image of “structuralism,” conceived as a form of industrial organization theory reduces the structure
“holism” implying adherence to a radical deter- of the relations of force constitutive of the field to
minism, this vision of action restores a certain free a set of interactions that in no respect transcend
play to agents, without forgetting, however, that those engaged in the field at a particular moment
decisions are merely choices among possibles, de- and can therefore be described in the language of
fined, in their limits, by the structure of the field, game theory. Being perfectly congruent in its basic
and that actions owe their orientation and effec- postulates with the intellectualist theory that also
tiveness to the structure of the objective relations underlies it, neoclassical theory, which, as is often
between those engaging in them and those who forgotten, was explicitly and expressly constructed
are the objects of those actions). The structure of against the logic of practice—on the basis of postu-
the relations of force among firms, which do not lates lacking any anthropological underpinning,
just interact indirectly, by way of prices, con- such as the postulate that the system of preferences
tributes, in most essential respects, to determin- is already constituted and transitive10—tacitly re-
ing prices by determining, through the position duces the effects that take place in the economic
occupied within this structure, the differential field to a play of reciprocal anticipations.
chances of influencing price-formation—for exam- Similarly, those who, in order to avoid the rep-
ple, through the economy-of-scale effect resulting resentation of the economic agent as an egoistic
from the fact that bargaining positions with sup- monad confined to the “narrow pursuit of his in-
pliers improve with size, or investment costs per terests” and as an “atomized actor taking decisions
unit of capacity diminish as total capacity increases. outside of any social constraints,” remind us, as
And it is this specific social structure that governs Mark Granovetter does, that economic action re-
the trends immanent to the mechanisms of the mains embedded in networks of social relations
field and, thereby, the degrees of freedom left for “generating trust and discouraging malfeasance,”11
the strategies of the agents. It is not prices that de- avoid “methodological individualism” only to fall
termine everything, but everything that deter- back into the interactionist vision that, ignoring
mines prices. the structural constraint of the field, will (or can)
Thus, field theory stands opposed to the atom- acknowledge only the effect of the conscious and
istic, mechanistic vision that hypostasizes the price calculated anticipation each agent may have of the
effect and that, like Newtonian physics, reduces effects of its actions on the other agents (precisely
agents (shareholders, managers, or firms) to inter- what a theorist of interactionism, like Anselm
changeable material points, whose preferences, in- Strauss, referred to as “awareness context”);12 or
scribed in an exogenous utility function or even, in the effect, conceived as “influence,” that “social
the most extreme variant (formulated by Gary networks,” other agents, or social norms have on
Becker, among others), an immutable one, deter- it. These are so many solutions that, eliminating all
mine actions mechanically. It also stands opposed, structural effects and objective power relations,
though in a different way, to the interactionist vi- amount to proposing a false supersession of the
sion, which is, by virtue of the representation of (itself spurious) alternative between individualism
78 Bourdieu
and holism.13 Though there is no question here of tive strength of the firm within the field: absolute size,
denying the economic efficacy of “networks” (or, number of firms, and product differentiation. Reducing
better, of social capital) in the functioning of the the structure of the field to the space of possibles as
economic field, the fact remains that the econom- they appear to the agents, he attempts, lastly, to draw
ic practices of agents and the very potency of their up a “typology” of “situations” defined by “all those
“networks,” which a rigorously defined notion of considerations which . . . [the seller] takes into account
social capital takes into account, depend, first and in determining his business policies and practices.”16
foremost, on the position these agents occupy in
those structured microcosms that are economic
fields. THE ECONOMIC FIELD AS A FIELD OF
STRUGGLES
It is not certain, then, that what is usually called the
“Harvard tradition” (that is to say, the industrial eco- The field of forces is also a field of struggles, a
nomics developed by Joe Bain and his associates) does socially constructed field of action in which agents
not deserve better than the somewhat condescending equipped with different resources confront each
attitude “industrial organization theorists” usually ac- other in order to gain access to exchange and to
cord it. It is perhaps better to move in the right direc- preserve or transform the currently prevailing rela-
tion with “loose theories,” stressing the empirical tion of force. Firms undertake actions there that
analysis of industrial sectors, than to go off, with all depend, for their ends and effectiveness, on their
the appearances of rigor, down a cul-de-sac, from a position in the field of forces, that is to say, in the
concern to present an “elegant and general analysis.” structure of distribution of capital in all its species.
I refer here to Jean Tirole, who writes: “The first Far from being faced with a weightless, constraint-
wave, associated with the names of Joe Bain and free world in which to develop their strategies at
Edward Mason and sometimes called the ‘Harvard leisure, they are oriented by the constraints and
tradition,’ was empirical in nature. It developed the possibilities built into their position and by the
famous ‘structure-conduct-performance paradigm’ representation they are able to form of that posi-
according to which market structure (the number of tion and the positions of their competitors as a
sellers in the market, the degree of product differenti- function of the information at their disposal and
ation, the cost structure, the degree of vertical inte- their cognitive structures. The amount of free play
gration with suppliers and so on) determines conduct afforded to them is undoubtedly greater than in
(which consists of price, research and development, other fields, on account of the particularly high de-
investment, advertising and so forth) and conduct gree to which the means and ends of action, and
yields market performance (efficiency, ratio of price to hence strategies, are made explicit, avowed, de-
marginal cost, product variety, innovation rate, profits clared, if not indeed cynically proclaimed, particu-
and distribution). This paradigm, although plausible, larly in the form of “native theories” of strategic
often rested on loose theories, and it emphasized em- action (management) expressly produced to assist
pirical studies on industries.”14 the agents, and particularly business leaders, in
Edward Mason does indeed have the merit of laying their decisions, and explicitly taught in the schools
the foundations of a true structural (as opposed to in- where they are trained, such as the major business
teractionist) analysis of the functioning of an econom- schools.17 (“Management theory,” a literature pro-
ic field: first, he argues that only an analysis capable of duced by business schools for business schools, ful-
taking account both of the structure of each firm, fills a function identical to that of the writings of
which underlies the disposition to react to the partic- the European jurists of the sixteenth and seven-
ular structure of the field, and the structure of each in- teenth centuries who, in the guise of describing
dustry, both of which are disregarded by advocates of the state, contributed to building it: being direct-
game theory (a theory that, in passing, he criticizes in ed at current or potential managers, that theory
advance of its actual emergence: “Elaborate specula- oscillates continually between the positive and the
tion on the probable behavior of A on the assumption normative, and depends fundamentally on an over-
that B will act in a certain way, seems particularly fruit- estimation of the degree to which conscious
less”), can account for all the differences between strategies play a role in business, as opposed to the
firms in terms of competitive practices, particularly in structural constraints upon, and the dispositions
their pricing, production, and investment policies.15 of, managers.)
He subsequently strives to work out, both theoretical- This kind of instituted cynicism, the very oppo-
ly and empirically, the factors that determine the rela- site of the denial and sublimation that tend to pre-
 Economic Anthropology 79

dominate in the worlds of symbolic production, sively adjusting to a “market situation,” are able to
means that in this case the boundary between the shape that situation actively.
native representation and the scientific description These fields are organized in a relatively invari-
is less marked: for example, one treatise on mar- ant manner around the main opposition between
keting refers to the “product market battlefield.”18 those who are sometimes called “first movers” or
In a field in which prices are both stakes and “market leaders” and the “challengers.”20 The dom-
weapons, strategies, both for those who produce inant firm usually has the initiative in terms of price
them and for others, have spontaneously a trans- changes, the introduction of new products, and
parency they never achieve in such worlds as the lit- distribution and promotion; it is able to impose
erary, artistic, or scientific fields, where the poten- the representation most favorable to its interests of
tial sanctions remain largely symbolic, that is to say, the appropriate style of play and rules of the game,
both vague and subject to subjective variations. and hence of participation in the game and the
And, in fact, as is attested by the work that the perpetuation of that game. It constitutes an essen-
logic of the gift has to perform to mask what is tial reference point for its competitors, who, what-
sometimes known in French as la vérité des prix ever they do, are called upon to position them-
[literally: the truth of prices] (for example, price selves, either actively or passively, in relation to it.
tags on presents are always carefully removed), the The threats it constantly faces—either of the ap-
money price has a kind of brutal objectivity and pearance of new products capable of supplanting
universality that allows little scope for subjective its own or of an excessive increase in costs such as
appreciation (even if one can say, for example: “It’s to threaten its profits—force it to be constantly
expensive for what it is” or “It’s well worth the vigilant (particularly in the case of shared market
price you paid for it”). It follows that conscious or dominance, where coordination designed to limit
unconscious bluffing strategies, such as strategies competition is the order of the day). Against these
of pure pretension, have less chance of succeeding threats, the dominant firm has a choice of two
in economic fields—though they also have their quite different strategies: it can work to improve
place in those fields, but rather as strategies of de- the overall position of the field, by attempting to
terrence or, more rarely, strategies of seduction. increase overall demand; or it can defend or im-
Strategies depend, first, on the particular config- prove its established positions within the field (its
uration of powers that confers structure on the market share).
field and that, defined by the degree of concentra- The interests of the dominant are indeed bound
tion, that is to say, the distribution of market share up with the overall state of the field, defined, in
among a more or less large number of firms, varies particular, by the average opportunities for profit it
between the two poles of perfect competition and offers, which also define the attraction it exerts (by
monopoly. If we are to believe Alfred D. Chandler, comparison with other fields). It is in their interest
between 1830 and 1960 the economies of the to work for increased demand, from which they
large industrialized countries saw a process of con- derive a particularly substantial benefit, since it is
centration (particularly through a wave of merg- proportionate to their market share, by attempting
ers) that gradually eliminated the world of small to recruit new users, and stimulate new uses or a
competing firms to which the classical economists more intensive utilization of the products they
referred: “The profile of American industry delin- offer (by acting, where applicable, on the political
eated in the McLane Report and other sources is, authorities). But, above all, they have to defend
then, one of production being carried out by a their position against the challengers by permanent
large number of small units employing less than innovation (new products and services, etc.) and
fifty workers and still relying on traditional sources by price reductions. By virtue of all the competitive
of energy. . . . Investment decisions for future out- advantages they enjoy (foremost among them the
put, as well as those for current production, were economies of scale linked to their size), they can
made by many hundreds of small producers in re- lower their costs and, at the same time, reduce
sponse to market signals, in much the way Adam their prices, while limiting any reduction in their
Smith described.”19 Now, at the end of a period of margins, making life very difficult for new entrants
development characterized, particularly, by a long and eliminating the least well equipped competi-
series of mergers and a profound transformation of tors. In short, by virtue of the determining contri-
corporate structures, we see that, in most fields of bution they make to the structure of the field (and
industry, the struggle is confined to a small num- the price-formation in which that structure ex-
ber of powerful competing firms that, far from pas- presses itself), a structure whose effects manifest
80 Bourdieu
themselves in the form of barriers to entry or eco- der how real transformations of relations of force
nomic constraints, the “first movers” enjoy deci- within a field are possible. In fact, technological
sive advantages both in relation to already estab- capital plays a crucial role here, and we may cite a
lished competitors and to potential new entrants.21 number of cases in which dominant firms have
The forces of the field orient the dominant to- been supplanted through a technological change
ward strategies whose end is the perpetuation or that, thanks to ensuing cost reductions, handed
reinforcement of their domination. In this way, the the advantage to smaller competitors. But techno-
symbolic capital they have at their disposal, by logical capital is effective only if it is associated with
virtue of their preeminence and also their seniori- other kinds of capital. This no doubt explains the
ty, enables them successfully to resort to strategies fact that victorious challengers are very seldom
intended to intimidate their competitors, such as small, emerging firms and that, where they are not
putting out signals to deter them from attacking the product of mergers between existing firms,
(for example, by organizing leaks about price re- they originate in other nations or, particularly, from
ductions or the building of a new factory)—strate- other subfields. It most often falls to the large firms
gies that may be pure bluff but that their symbolic to effect revolutions—firms that, by diversifying,
capital renders credible and hence effective. It may can take advantage of their technological compe-
even happen that these dominant firms, confident tences to present a competitive proposition in new
in their strength and aware they have the resources fields. So, the changes within a field are often
to sustain a long offensive that puts time on their linked to changes in the relations with the exterior
side, choose to abstain from any riposte and allow of that field.
their opponents to mount attacks that are costly To these boundary-crossings must be added also
and doomed to failure. Generally speaking, the redefinitions of boundaries between fields: some
hegemonic firms have the capacity to set the fields may find themselves segmented into smaller
tempo of transformation in the various areas of sectors, the aeronautics industry dividing up, for
production, marketing, research, and so on, and example, into producers of airliners, fighter planes,
the differential use of time is one of the main levers and tourist aircraft; or, conversely, technological
of their power. change may lower the barriers between industries
The appearance of a new, effective agent modi- that were previously separated: for example, com-
fies the structure of the field. Similarly, the adop- puting, telecommunications, and office technolo-
tion of a new technology or the acquisition of a gy are increasingly coming to be merged, with the
greater market share modifies the relative positions result that firms previously present in only one of
and field of all the species of capital held by the the three subfields are increasingly tending to find
other firms. But the second-rank firms in a field themselves in competition in the new space of
can also attack the dominant firm (and the other relationships that is forming—the field of the au-
competitors), either frontally, for example, by at- diovisual industry undergoing drastic change as a
tempting to reduce their costs and prices (particu- result of new entrants breaking into it from
larly by technological innovation), or laterally, by telecommunications and computing, where firms
attempting to fill the gaps left by the action of the have resources greatly exceeding those of the tra-
dominant firm and to occupy niches at the cost of ditional agents. In this case, a single firm may
a specialization of their production, or by turning come into competition not merely with other firms
the dominant firm’s strategies back against it. In in its field, but also with firms belonging to various
this case, success seems to depend on the relative other fields. We can see, in passing, that in eco-
position in the structure of capital distribution nomic fields, as in all other categories of field, the
and, thereby, in the field: whereas very large firms boundaries of the field are at stake in the struggles
can make high profits by achieving economies of within the field itself (most notably, through the
scale, and small firms can obtain high profits by question of possible substitutes and the competi-
specializing to devote themselves to a limited mar- tion they introduce); and that, in each case, empir-
ket segment, medium-size firms often have low ical analysis alone can determine these. (It is not
rates of profit because they are too big to benefit uncommon for fields to have a quasi-institutional-
from tightly targeted production and too small to ized existence in the form of branches of activity
benefit from the economies of scale of the largest equipped with professional organizations function-
firms. ing as clubs for the managers of the industry, de-
Given that the forces of the field tend to rein- fense groups for the prevailing boundaries, and
force the dominant positions, one might well won- hence for the principles of exclusion underlying
 Economic Anthropology 81

them; and as representative bodies for dealing with lations of force, that is to say, only to the extent that
the public authorities, trade unions, and other sim- they provide an advantage to the challengers: they
ilar bodies, in which capacity they are equipped enable the challengers to gain a position in special-
with permanent organs of action and expression.) ized niche-markets when it is difficult for “first
However, of all exchanges with the exterior of movers,” focused on standardized, volume produc-
the field the most important are those established tion, to satisfy the very particular demands of these
with the state. Competition among firms often markets—those of a particular category of con-
takes the form of competition for power over state sumer or a specific regional market—and the foot-
power—particularly over the power of regulation holds gained by the challengers may constitute
and property rights22—and for the advantages pro- bridgeheads for subsequent development.
vided by the various state interventions: preferential
tariffs, trade licenses, research and development
funds, public sector contracts, funding for job- THE FIRM AS A FIELD
creation, innovation, modernization, exports, hous-
ing, and so on. In their attempts to modify the pre- It is clear that decisions on prices or in any other
vailing “rules of the game” to their advantage, and area of activity do not depend on a single actor, a
thereby to exploit some of their properties that can myth that conceals the power games and stakes
function as capital in the new state of the field, within the firm functioning as a field or, to put it
dominated firms can use their social capital to exert more precisely, within the field of power specific to
pressures on the state and to have it modify the each firm. In other words, if we enter the “black
game in their favor.23 Thus, what is called the mar- box” that is the firm, we find not individuals, but,
ket is the totality of relations of exchange between once again, a structure—that of the firm as a field,
competing agents, direct interactions that depend, endowed with a relative autonomy in respect of
as Simmel has it, on an “indirect conflict” or, in the constraints associated with the firm’s position
other words, on the socially constructed structure within the field of firms. Though the surrounding
of the relations of force to which the different field affects its structure, this embedded field, as a
agents engaged in the field contribute to varying specific relation of force and area of free play, de-
degrees through the modifications they manage to fines the very terms and stakes of the struggle, giv-
impose upon it, by drawing, particularly, on the ing a particular cast to them that often renders
state power they are able to control and guide. The them unintelligible, at first sight, from the outside.
state is not simply the regulator put there to main- If the strategies of firms (most notably with re-
tain order and confidence, the arbiter responsible gard to prices) depend on the positions they occu-
for “overseeing” firms and their interactions, as py within the structure of the field, they depend
commonly conceived. In the quite exemplary case also on the structure of power positions constitu-
of the field of production of single-family houses, as tive of the internal governance of the firm or, more
in many other fields, it contributes, quite decisive- exactly, on the (socially constituted) dispositions of
ly, to the construction of both demand and supply, the directors [dirigeants] acting under the con-
each of these two forms of intervention occurring straint of the field of power within the firm and of
under the direct or indirect influence of the parties the field of the firm as a whole (which may be char-
most directly concerned.24 acterized in terms of indices such as the hierarchi-
Other external factors capable of contributing to cal composition of the labor force, the educational
a transformation of relations of force within the field and, in particular, scientific capital of the manage-
include transformations of sources of supply (for ex- rial staff, the degree of bureaucratic differentiation,
ample, the great petroleum finds of the early twen- the weight of the trade unions, etc.). The system of
tieth century) and changes in demand determined constraints and inducements that is built into the
by demographic changes (such as the fall in the position within the field and inclines the dominant
birthrate or increased life expectancy) or in lifestyles firms to act in the direction most likely to perpet-
(women’s increased participation in the labor force, uate their domination, has nothing inevitable
which leads to a fall in demand for certain products about it, nor does it even represent a kind of infal-
linked to the traditional definition of women’s roles lible instinct orienting firms and managers toward
and creates new markets, such as those for frozen the choices most favorable to the maintenance of
foods and microwave ovens). In fact, these external acquired advantages. Reference is often made, in
factors exert their effects on the relations of force this connection, to the example of Henry Ford,
within the field only through the logic of those re- who, after his brilliant success in production and
82 Bourdieu
distribution had made him the manufacturer of the STRUCTURE AND COMPETITION
world’s cheapest automobiles, destroyed his firm’s
competitive capacities in the period after the First To take into account the structure of the field is
World War by driving out almost all his most expe- to say that competition for access to exchange with
rienced and competent managers, who subsequent- clients cannot be understood as being oriented
ly brought about the success of his competitors. solely by conscious, explicit reference to direct
This being said, though it enjoys relative auton- competitors or, at least, to the most dangerous of
omy from the forces of the overall field, the struc- them, according to Harrison White’s formula:
ture of the field of power within the firm is itself “Producers watch each other within a market.”27
closely correlated with the position of the firm in The same point is made even more explicitly by
that field, principally through the correspondence Max Weber, who sees here a “peaceful conflict” to
between, on the one hand, the volume of the firm’s seize “chances or advantages also wanted by oth-
capital (itself linked to the age of the firm and its ers.” He writes: “the potential partners are guided
position in the life cycle—hence, roughly speaking, in their offers by the potential action of an inde-
to its size and integration) and the structure of that terminately large group of real or imaginary com-
capital (particularly, the relative proportions of fi- petitors rather than by their own actions alone.”28
nancial, commercial, and technical capital) and, on Weber is here describing a form of rational calcula-
the other, the structure of the distribution of the tion, but a calculation quite different in its logic
capital among the various directors [dirigeants] of from that of economic orthodoxy: not agents who
the firm, that is, between owners and “functionar- make their choices on the basis of information fur-
ies”—managers—and, among these latter, between nished by prices, but agents taking account of the
the holders of different species of cultural capital: actions and reactions of their competitors and
predominantly financial, technical, or commercial, “evolv[ing] roles on the basis of each other’s be-
that is to say, in the French case, between the vari- havior”; hence they are equipped with information
ous elite corps and the schools where they received about their competitors and capable of acting with
their training: the École Nationale d’Administra- or against them, as in the action of bargaining, the
tion, the École Polytechnique, or the École des “most consistent form of market formation,” and
Hautes Etudes Commerciales.25 the “compromise of interests” that seals it. How-
Undeniable trends can be identified over the ever, though he has the virtue of substituting the
long term in the evolution of the relations of force relationship with the totality of producers for the
between the major agents in the field of power transaction with the partner or client alone, he re-
within firms: most notably one sees, first, a preem- duces that relationship to a conscious, considered
inence of entrepreneurs with a mastery of new interaction between competitors investing in the
technologies, capable of assembling the funds re- same object (“all parties potentially interested in
quired to exploit them, then the increasingly in- the exchange”). And it is the same with Harrison
evitable intervention of bankers and financial insti- White, who, though he sees the market as a “self-
tutions, and finally the rise of managers.26 However, reproducing social structure,” seeks the underlying
apart from the fact that one must analyze the par- principle behind the strategies of the producers not
ticular form the configuration of the distribution of in the constraints inherent in their structural posi-
powers among firms assumes at each state of each tion, but in the observation and deciphering of sig-
field, it is by analyzing, for each firm at every mo- nals given out by the behavior of other producers:
ment, the form of the configuration of powers “Markets are self-reproducing social structures
within the field of power over the firm that one can among specific cliques of firms and other actors
fully understand the logic of the struggles in which who evolve roles from observations of each other’s
the firm’s goals are determined. It is, in fact, clear behavior.”29 Or elsewhere: “Markets are tangible
that these goals are the stakes in struggles and that, cliques of producers watching each other. Pressure
for the rational calculations of an enlightened “de- from the buyer side creates a mirror in which pro-
cision maker,” we have to substitute the political ducers see themselves, not consumers.”30 The pro-
struggle among agents who tend to identify their ducers, armed with the knowledge of the cost of
specific interests (linked to their position in the firm production, attempt to maximize their income by
and their dispositions) with the interests of the firm determining the right volume of production “on
and whose power can no doubt be measured by the basis of observed positions of all other produc-
their capacity to identify, for better or for worse (as ers” and seek a niche in the market.
the Henry Ford example shows), the interests of The point is, in fact, to subordinate this “inter-
the firm with their interests within the firm. actionist” description of strategies to a structural
 Economic Anthropology 83

analysis of the conditions that delimit the space of the scholastic fallacy,31 an intellectualist or intellec-
possible strategies—while, at the same time, not tualocentric error very common in the social sci-
forgetting that competition among a small num- ences (particularly in linguistics and ethnology), by
ber of agents in strategic interaction for access which the scholar puts into the heads of the agents
(for some of them) to exchange with a particular he is studying—housewives or households, firms
category of clients is also, and above all, an en- or entrepreneurs, et cetera—the theoretical con-
counter between producers occupying different siderations and constructions he has had to devel-
positions within the structure of the specific cap- op in order to account for their practices.32 It is one
ital (in its different species) and clients occupying of the virtues of Gary Becker, who is responsible
positions in social space homologous to the posi- for the boldest attempts to export the model of the
tions those producers occupy in the field. What market and the (supposedly more powerful and ef-
are commonly called niches are simply those sec- ficient) technology of the neoclassical firm into all
tions of the clientele that structural affinity as- the social sciences, that he declares quite openly
signs to the different firms, and particularly to what is sometimes concealed within the implicit as-
second-rank firms: as I have shown for cultural sumptions of scholarly routine:
goods and goods with a high symbolic content “The economic approach . . . now assumes that
such as clothes or houses, one can probably ob- individuals maximize their utility from basic pref-
serve in each field a homology between the space erences that do not change rapidly over time and
of the producers (and products) and the space of that the behavior of different individuals is coordi-
the clients distributed according to the pertinent nated by explicit or implicit markets. . . . The eco-
principles of differentiation. We may note, in nomic approach is not restricted to material goods
passing, that this amounts to saying that the and wants or to markets with monetary transac-
sometimes lethal constraints the dominant pro- tions, and conceptually does not distinguish be-
ducers impose on their current or potential com- tween major or minor decisions or between ‘emo-
petitors are invariably mediated by the field: con- tional’ and other decisions. Indeed, the economic
sequently, competition is never other than an approach provides a framework applicable to all
“indirect conflict” (in Simmel’s sense) and is not human behavior—to all types of decisions and to
targeted directly against the competitor. In the persons from all walks of life.”33
economic field, as elsewhere, the struggle does Nothing now escapes explanation in terms of
not need to be inspired by any intention to de- the maximizing agent—structural organizations,
stroy for it to produce destructive effects. (We firms or contracts, parliaments and municipal au-
may deduce an “ethical” consequence from the thorities, marriage (conceived as the economic ex-
vision of the worlds of production as fields: just as change of services of production and reproduc-
we can say with Harrison White that “each firm is tion) or the household, and relations between
distinctive,” as a position in a field, a point in a parents and children or the state. This mode of
space, without being obliged to suppose that all universal explanation by an explanatory principle
its strategies are inspired by a pursuit of distinc- that is itself universal (individual preferences are
tion—the same thing being true of every under- exogenous, ordered, and stable and hence without
taking of cultural production, for example on the contingent genesis or evolution) no longer knows
part of an artist, a writer, or a sociologist—so we any bounds. Gary Becker does not even recognize
can assert that every agent committed to a field is those bounds Pareto himself was forced to assume
engaged in an “indirect conflict” with all those in the founding text in which, identifying the ra-
engaged in the same game: his/her actions may tionality of economic behavior with rationality as
have the effect of destroying them, without being such, he distinguished between strictly economic
in the least inspired by any destructive intent, or behavior, which is the outcome of “a series of log-
even any intention to outdo them or compete ical reasonings” based on experience, and behavior
with them.) determined by “custom,” such as the act of raising
one’s hat on entering a room34 (thus acknowledg-
ing another principle of action—usage, tradition,
THE ECONOMIC HABITUS or custom—unlike methodological individualism
that recognizes only the alternative between con-
Homo economicus, as conceived (tacitly or explic- scious and deliberate choice, satisfying certain con-
itly) by economic orthodoxy, is a kind of anthro- ditions of efficacy and coherence, and the “social
pological monster: this theoretically minded man norm,” which also requires a choice for it to be-
of practice is the most extreme personification of come effective.
84 Bourdieu
It is perhaps by recalling the arbitrary nature of the sciousness and thereby overcome the disastrous
founding distinction (a distinction still present today mechanism/finalism alternative or, in other words,
in the minds of economists, who leave the curiosa or the alternative of determination by causes and de-
failings of economic operations to sociologists) be- termination by reasons; or, to put it another way,
tween the economic order, governed by the effective between so-called methodological individualism
logic of the market and a place of logical behaviors, and what is sometimes called (among the “individ-
and the uncertain “social” order, shot through with ualists”) holism—a semiscientific opposition that is
the “nonlogical” arbitrariness of custom, passions, merely the euphemistic form of the alternative
and powers, that we can best contribute to the inte- (undoubtedly the most powerful in the political
gration, or “hybridization,” of the two disciplines of order) between, on the one hand, individualism or
sociology and economics—disciplines that have un- liberalism, which regards the individual as the ulti-
dergone a dramatic separation, in spite of the efforts mate autonomous elementary unit, and, on the
to the contrary on the part of some of their great other, collectivism or socialism, which are pre-
founders (Pareto and Schumpeter, for example, in the sumed to regard the collective as primary.
direction of sociology, and Durkheim, Mauss, Halb- Insofar as he/she is endowed with a habitus, the
wachs, and, above all, Weber, in the direction of eco- social agent is a collective individual or a collective
nomics).35 One can reunify an artificially divided social individuated by the fact of embodying objective
science only by becoming aware of the fact that eco- structures. The individual, the subjective, is social
nomic structures and economic agents or, more ex- and collective. The habitus is socialized subjectivi-
actly, their dispositions, are social constructs, indis- ty, a historic transcendental, whose schemes of per-
sociable from the totality of social constructs ception and appreciation (systems of preferences,
constitutive of a social order. But this reunified social tastes, etc.) are the product of collective and indi-
science, capable of constructing models that cannot vidual history. Reason (or rationality) is “bound-
easily be assigned to either of the two disciplines ed” not only, as Herbert Simon believes, because
alone, will undoubtedly find it very hard to win ac- the human mind is generically bounded (there is
ceptance, for both political reasons and reasons relat- nothing new in that idea), but because it is social-
ing to the specific logic of scientific worlds. There are ly structured and determined, and, as a conse-
undoubtedly many who have an interest in obscuring quence, limited. Those who will be first to point
the connections between economic policies and their out that this, too, is nothing new should ask them-
social consequences or, more precisely, between so- selves why economic theory has remained so solid-
called economic policies (the political character of ly deaf to all reminders of these anthropological
which asserts itself in the very fact of their refusing to findings. For example, even in his day Veblen de-
take account of the social) and the social, and eco- fended the idea that the economic agent is not a
nomic, costs—which would not be so difficult to cal- “bundle of desires,” but “a coherent structure of
culate if there were any will to do so—of their short- propensities and habits,”36 and it was James S.
and long-term effects (I have in mind, for example, Duesenberry who observed that the explanation
the increase in economic and social inequalities result- for consumer choices was to be found not in ra-
ing from the implementation of neoliberal policies, tional planning, but rather in “learning and habit
and the negative effects of those inequalities on formation” and who established that consumption
health, delinquency, crime, etc.). But if strong reasons was as dependent on past income as on present.37
exist for the cognitive hemiplegia currently afflicting And it was Veblen again, anticipating the idea of
sociologists and economists to perpetuate itself, in “interactive demand,” who, like Jevons and Mar-
spite of the increasing efforts to overcome it, this is shall, long ago enunciated the effects of structure,
also because the social forces that weigh on the sup- or of position within a structure, on the definition
posedly pure and perfect worlds of science, particular- of needs and hence on demand. In short, if there
ly through the systems of penalties and rewards em- is a universal property, it is that agents are not uni-
bodied in scholarly publications, caste hierarchies, and versal, because their properties and, in particular,
so on, promote the reproduction of separate spaces, their preferences and tastes, are the product of
associated with different, if not indeed irreconcilable their positioning and movements within social
dispositions and structures of opportunity, which are space, and hence of collective and individual histo-
the product of the initial separation. ry. The economic behavior socially recognized as
rational is the product of certain economic and so-
It is the primary function of the concept of habi- cial conditions. It is only by relating it to its indi-
tus to break with the Cartesian philosophy of con- vidual and collective genesis that one can under-
 Economic Anthropology 85

stand its economic and social conditions of possi- actions adapted to an economic order (for exam-
bility and, consequently, both the necessity and the ple, calculating, saving, investing, etc.).
sociological limits of economic reason and of ap- The concept of habitus also enables us to escape
parently unconditioned notions such as needs, cal- the dichotomy between finalism—which defines
culation, or preferences. action as determined by the conscious reference to
This said, habitus is in no sense a mechanical a deliberately set purpose and which, consequent-
principle of action or, more exactly, of reaction (it ly, conceives all behavior as the product of a pure-
is not a “reflex”). It is conditioned and limited ly instrumental, if not indeed cynical, calculation—
spontaneity. It is that autonomous principle which and mechanism, which reduces action to a pure
means that action is not simply an immediate re- reaction to undifferentiated causes. The orthodox
action to a brute reality, but an “intelligent” re- economists and philosophers who defend rational
sponse to an actively selected aspect of the real: action theory swing, sometimes in the space of a
linked to a history fraught with a probable future, single sentence, between these two logically in-
it is the inertia, the trace of their past trajectory, compatible theoretical options: on the one hand, a
that agents set against the immediate forces of the finalist decisionism, in which the agent is a pure ra-
field, that means that their strategies cannot be tional consciousness acting in complete awareness
deduced directly either from the immediate posi- of the consequences, the principle of action being
tion or situation. It produces a response, the di- a reason or rational decision determined by a ra-
recting principle of which is not pregiven in the tional evaluation of probable outcomes; and on the
stimulus and that, without being entirely unpre- other hand, a physicalism that regards the agent as
dictable, cannot be predicted on the basis of an inertia-less particle, reacting mechanically and
knowledge of the situation alone; a response to instantaneously to a combination of forces. But the
an aspect of reality that is distinguished by a se- task of reconciling the irreconcilable is made easier
lective and (in both senses of the term) partial— here by the fact that the two branches of the alter-
but not strictly “subjective”—apprehension of native are really only one: in each case, yielding to
certain stimuli, by an attention to a particular side the scholastic fallacy, the scientific subject, en-
of things of which it can be said, without distinc- dowed with a perfect knowledge of causes and
tion, either that it “arouses interest” or that in- probable outcomes, is projected into the active
terest arouses it; an action that one can describe agent, presumed to be rationally inclined to set as
noncontradictorily as being both determined and his goals the opportunities assigned to him by the
spontaneous, since it is determined by conven- causes (it hardly needs saying that the fact that
tional, conditional stimuli that exist as such only economists subscribe quite consciously to this fal-
for an agent disposed to perceive them and capa- lacy in the name of “the right to abstraction” is not
ble of perceiving them. sufficient to obviate its effects).
The screen that the habitus introduces between Habitus is a highly economical principle of ac-
stimulus and reaction is a screen of time insofar as, tion, which makes for an enormous saving in cal-
being itself the product of a history, it is relatively culation (particularly in the calculation of costs of
constant and durable, and hence relatively inde- research and measurement) and also in time, which
pendent of history. As a product of past experi- is a particularly rare resource when it comes to ac-
ences and a whole collective and individual accu- tion. It is, therefore, particularly well suited to the
mulation, it can be understood adequately only by ordinary conditions of existence, which, either be-
a genetic analysis applying both to collective histo- cause of time pressure or an insufficiency of requi-
ry—with, for example, the history of tastes, as il- site knowledge, allow little scope for the conscious,
lustrated by Sidney Mintz’s demonstration of how calculated evaluation of the chances of profit. Aris-
the taste for sugar, originally an exotic luxury ing directly out of practice and linked to it in both
product reserved for the well-to-do, gradually be- its structure and functioning, this practical sense
came an indispensable element in the ordinary diet cannot be assessed outside of the practical condi-
of the working classes38—and to individual histo- tions of its implementation. This means that the
ry—with the analysis of the economic and social tests to which “judgmental heuristics”40 subjects
conditions of the genesis of individual tastes in individuals are doubly inadequate, since they at-
terms of diet, decoration, clothing and also songs, tempt, in an artificial situation, to assess an apti-
theater, music or cinema, et cetera,39 and, more tude to conscious and calculated evaluation of
generally, of the dispositions (in the dual sense of probable outcomes, the implementation of which
capacities and propensities) to perform economic itself presupposes a break with the inclinations of
86 Bourdieu
practical sense (this is, in fact, to forget that the perceptible incorporation of the experience of con-
calculus of probabilities was developed to counter stant or recurring situations, are immediately
the spontaneous tendencies of primary intuition). adapted to new but not radically unprecedented
The relation of the habitus to the field—a rela- situations. As a disposition to act that is the prod-
tionship that is obscure in practice because it lies uct of previous experiences of similar situations,
below the level of the dualism of subject and ob- habitus provides a practical mastery of situations of
ject, activity and passivity, means and ends, deter- uncertainty and grounds a relation to the future
minism and freedom—in which the habitus deter- that is not that of a project, as an aiming for possi-
mines itself in determining what determines it, is a ble outcomes that equally well may or may not
calculation without calculator and an intentional occur, but a relation of practical anticipation: dis-
action without intention, for which there is much covering in the very objectivity of the world what
empirical evidence.41 In the particular (and partic- is, apparently, the only course of action, and grasp-
ularly frequent) case in which the habitus is the ing time-to-come as a quasi present (and not as a
product of objective conditions similar to those contingent future), the anticipation of time-to-
under which it operates, it generates behaviors that come has nothing whatever in common with the
are particularly well suited to those conditions purely speculative logic of a calculus of risk capable
without being the product of a conscious, inten- of attributing values to the various possible out-
tional search for adaptation (it is for this reason comes. But habitus is also, as we have seen, a prin-
that we should beware of taking Keynes’s “adap- ciple of differentiation and selection that tends to
tive expectations” for “rational expectations,” even conserve whatever confirms it, thus affirming itself
if the agent with a well-adjusted habitus is, in a as a potentiality that tends to ensure the conditions
sense, a replica of the agent as producer of ration- of its own realization.
al expectations). In this case, the effect of the habi- Just as the intellectualist vision of economic or-
tus remains, so to speak, invisible, and the expla- thodoxy reduces the practical mastery of situations
nation in terms of habitus may seem redundant in of uncertainty to a rational calculus of risk, so,
relation to explanation in terms of the situation drawing on game theory, it construes the anticipa-
(one may even have the impression that we are tion of the behavior of others as a kind of calcula-
dealing with an ad hoc explanation along the lines tion of the opponent’s intentions, conceived hypo-
of the explanation of sleep by some “dormitive thetically as intentions to deceive, particularly with
property”). But the specific efficacy of habitus can regard to intentions themselves. In fact, the prob-
be clearly seen in all the situations in which it is not lem that economic orthodoxy resolves by the
the product of the conditions of its actualization ultraintellectualist hypothesis of “common knowl-
(increasingly frequent as societies become differen- edge” (I know that you know that I know) is re-
tiated): this is the case when agents formed in a solved in practice by the orchestration of habitus
precapitalist economy run up, in some disarray, that, to the very extent that they are congruent,
against the demands of a capitalist cosmos;42 or permits a mutual anticipation of the behavior of
when old people quixotically cling to dispositions others. The paradoxes of collective action have
that are out of place and out of time; or when the their solution in practices based on the implicit as-
dispositions of an agent rising, or falling, in the sumption that others will act responsibly and with
social structure—a nouveau riche, a parvenu, or a that kind of constancy and truth-to-self which is
déclassé—are at odds with the position that agent inscribed in the durable character of habitus.
occupies. Such effects of hysteresis, of a lag in
adaptation and counteradaptive mismatch, can be
explained by the relatively persistent, though not A WELL-FOUNDED ILLUSION
entirely unchangeable, character of habitus.
To the (relative) constancy of dispositions there Thus, the theory of habitus allows us to explain
corresponds a (relative) constancy of the social the apparent truth of the theory that it shows to be
games in which they are constituted: like all social false. If a hypothesis as unrealistic as the one that
games, economic games are not games of chance; founds rational action theory or rational expecta-
they present regularities, and a finite number of tion theory may seem to be validated by the facts,
similar patterns recur, which confers a certain mo- this is because, by virtue of an empirically estab-
notony on them. As a result, the habitus produces lished statistical correspondence between disposi-
reasonable (not rational) expectations, which, being tions and positions, in the great majority of cases
the product of dispositions engendered by the im- (the most noticeable exceptions being subproletar-
 Economic Anthropology 87

ians, déclassés, and renegades, which the model as Gary Becker) and of methodological individual-
does in fact enable us to explain nonetheless) ism (such as James Coleman, Jon Elster, and their
agents form reasonable expectations, that is to say, French epigones) will undoubtedly have rendered
expectations matching up to the objective proba- a great service to research: by its very excess and its
bilities—and almost always adjusted and reinforced unconcern for experience, their narrowly intellec-
by the direct effect of collective controls, particu- tualist (or intellectualocentric) ultrarationalism di-
larly those exercised by the family. And the theory rectly contradicts the best-established findings of
of habitus even enables us to understand why a the historical sciences of human practices. If it has
theoretical construct such as the “representative seemed necessary to demonstrate that many of the
agent,” based on the hypothesis that the choices established findings of economic science are per-
of all the different agents in a single category— fectly compatible with a philosophy of agents, ac-
consumers, for example—can, in spite of their ex- tion, time, and the social world quite different
treme heterogeneity, be treated as the choice of a from the one normally accepted by the majority of
standard “representative individual” maximizing economists, this has, therefore, not been done
his utility, is not visibly invalidated by the evidence. here to satisfy some philosophical point of honor,
Alan Kirman has shown not only that this fiction but solely in an attempt to reunify the social sci-
rests on very restrictive and special hypotheses, but ences by working to restore economics to its true
that there are no grounds for asserting that the ag- vocation as a historical science.
gregated set of individuals, even if they were all
maximizers, itself behaves as an individual maxi-
mizing its utility and, conversely, that the fact that NOTES
a community presents a certain degree of rational-
ity does not entail that all the individuals are acting This text was originally published as “Principes d’une
rationally; Kirman consequently suggests that we anthropologie économique (in Les structures sociales de
l’économie. Paris: Seuil, 2000). It has been translated by
may found a global demand function not on the Chris Turner and checked by Richard Nice. For help with
homogeneity, but the heterogeneity, of agents, as this chapter, we also thank Jerome Bourdieu, Johan Heilbron,
highly dispersed demand behavior on the part of and Loïc Wacquant. Printed with permission of Polity Press.
individuals is capable of producing very unified Paragraphs above that are indented and marked by a line
on the left are, in the French original, printed in a smaller
and highly stabilized overall aggregated demand
typeface (to indicate subordinate status).
behavior.43 Now, there is a realist grounding for 1. In the absence, as yet, of any formalization along the
such a hypothesis in the theory of habitus and in lines laid down by these principles, we can call on corre-
the representation of consumers as a set of hetero- spondence analysis (the theoretical foundations of which are
geneous agents with dispositions, preferences, and very similar) to help us bring out the structure of the eco-
nomic field or, in other words, the true explanatory princi-
interests that are very different (just as they have ple of economic practices.
very different conditions of existence), but adjust- 2. Walton H. Hamilton et al., Price and Price Policies
ed, in each case, to conditions of existence involv- (New York: McGraw Hill, 1938).
ing different chances, and subject, as a result, to 3. Mare R. Tool, “Contributions to an Institutional The-
ory of Price Determination,” in Rethinking Economics: Mar-
the inbuilt constraints of the structure of the
kets, Technology, and Economic Evolution, ed. Geoffrey M.
field—the structure of the overall economic field— Hodgson and Ernesto Screpanti (Hants: E. Elgar, 1991),
and also of the more or less limited subspaces in 29–30.
which they interact with a limited subgroup of 4. This conception of social capital differs from the defi-
agents. There is little room in the economic field nitions that have subsequently been given in American soci-
ology and economics in that it takes into account not only
for “madcap behavior,” and those who indulge in the network of relations, characterized as regards its extent
it pay the price for defying the immanent rules and and viability, but also the volume of capital of different
regularities of the economic order by failure or species that it enables to be mobilized by proxy (and, at the
disappearance. same time, the various profits it can procure: promotion,
participation in projects, opportunities for participation in
In giving an explicit, systematic form to the phi-
important decisions, chances to make financial or other in-
losophy of the agent and of action that economic vestments). See Bourdieu, “Le capital social. Notes provi-
theory most often accepts tacitly (because, among soires,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 31 (January
other reasons, with notions such as “preference” 1980): 2–3.
or “rational choice,” economic orthodoxy is mere- 5. Cultural capital, technical capital, and commercial cap-
ital exist both in objectivized form (equipment, instruments,
ly rationalizing a commonsense “theory” of deci- etc.) and in embodied form (competence, skills, etc.). One
sion making), the advocates of rational action the- can see an anticipation of the distinction between the two
ory (which includes a number of economists such states of capital, the objectivized and the embodied, in the
88 Bourdieu
work of Thorstein Veblen, who criticizes the orthodox the- and benefits associated with the different categories of prod-
ory of capital for overestimating tangible assets to the detri- uct (mainly, theoretical and empirical) on the economics mar-
ment of intangible ones. See Thorstein Veblen, The Instinct ket, which enables us to understand the comparative destinies
of Workmanship (New York: Augustus Kelley, 1964). of the “Harvard tradition” and the “new theory of industrial
6. Beth Mintz and Michael Schwartz, The Power Struc- organization” he is defending: “Until the 1970s, economic
ture of American Business (Chicago: University of Chicago theorists (with a few exceptions) pretty much ignored indus-
Press, 1985). trial organization, which did not lend itself to elegant and
7. Jan A. Kregel, “Markets and Institutions as Features of general analysis the way the theory of competitive general
a Capitalistic Production System,” Journal of Post-Keynesian equilibrium analysis did. Since then, a fair number of top the-
Economics 3, no. 1(1980): 32–48. orists have become interested in industrial organization.”
8. As R. H. Coase has pointed out, it is on the basis of the 15. Edward S. Mason, “Price and Production Policies
assumption, tacitly made in orthodox theory, of zero trans- of a Large-Scale Enterprise,” American Economic Review
action costs that acts of exchange can be rendered instanta- 29(1939), supplement, 61–74 (esp. 64).
neous: “Another consequence of the assumption of zero 16. “The structure of a seller’s market includes all those
transaction costs, not usually noticed, is that, when there are considerations which he takes into account in determining
no costs of making transactions, it costs nothing to speed his business policies and practices.” Mason, “Price and Pro-
them up, so that eternity can be experienced in a split sec- duction Policies,” 68 (my italics, to point up the oscillation
ond.” R. H. Coase, The Firm, the Market, and the Law between the language of structure and structural constraint
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 15. and that of consciousness and intentional choice).
9. Jean Tirole, The Theory of Industrial Organization 17. Max Weber observes that commodity exchange is
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), 4. quite exceptional in that it represents the most instrumental,
10. The classic work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahne- most calculating of all forms of action, this “archetype of ra-
man has shown up the shortcomings of agents, and the mis- tional action” representing “an abomination to every system
takes they make, with regard to probability theory and sta- of fraternal ethics.” Economy and Society, ed. Guenther Roth
tistics. See A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, “Availability, a and Claus Wittich, trans. Ephraim Fischoff et al., vol. 1
Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability,” Cognitive (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
Psychology 2(1973): 207–32; see also Stuart Sutherland, Ir- 1978), 637.
rationality, the Enemy Within (London: Constable, 1992). 18. Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, Analysis,
There is a danger that the intellectualist assumption that un- Planning, Implementation, and Control (Englewood Cliffs,
derlies this research may lead us to miss the fact that the log- N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988), 239.
ical problem one infers from a real situation is not posed as 19. Alfred D. Chandler, The Visible Hand: The Manager-
such by the agents (friendship as a social relation is not in- ial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Harvard
formed by the principle that “my friends’ friends are my University Press, 1977), 62.
friends”) and the logic of dispositions means that agents are 20. Although this vision has sometimes been contested in
capable of responding in practice to situations involving recent years on the grounds that the recession has seen a
problems of anticipation of opportunity that they cannot re- constant overturning of hierarchies, and that mergers and
solve abstractly. See Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice acquisitions allow small firms to buy up large ones, or to
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990). compete effectively with them, the world’s two hundred
11. Mark Granovetter, “Economic Action and Social largest firms have nonetheless remained relatively stable.
Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” American 21. Alfred D. Chandler, Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of
Journal of Sociology 91(1985): 481–510. Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge: Harvard University
12. Anselm L. Strauss, Continual Permutations of Action Press, 1990), 598–99.
(New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993). 22. See John L. Campbell and Leon Lindberg, “Proper-
13. See Mark Granovetter, “Economic Institutions as So- ty Rights and the Organization of Economic Action by the
cial Constructions: A Framework for Analysis,” Acta Socio- State,” American Sociological Review 55(1990): 634–47.
logica 35(1992): 3–11. Granovetter presents here a modi- 23. Neil Fligstein has shown that one cannot understand
fied version of the alternative between “individualism” and the transformation of corporate control without dissecting
“holism,” which is rampant in economic (and sociological) the state of firms’ relations over the long term with the state.
orthodoxy, in the form of the opposition, borrowed from And he has done this in the case most favorable to liberal
Dennis Wrong (“The Oversocialized Conception of Man in theory, that of the United States, where the state remains a
Modern Sociology,” American Sociological Review 26[1961]: decisive agent in the structuring of industries and markets.
183–93) between the “undersocialized view” dear to eco- See Neil Fligstein, The Transformation of Corporate Control
nomic orthodoxy and the “oversocialized view,” which as- (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990). Further evi-
sumes that agents are “so sensitive to the opinions of others dence of the decisive importance of central regulation is pro-
that they automatically [obey] commonly held norms for vided by the organized lobbying activity European firms
behavior” (Granovetter, “Economic Action,” 5) or that they carry on in Brussels.
have so profoundly internalized the norms or constraints 24. The state, which plays a clear role in the case of the
that they are no longer affected by existing social relations economy of house building, is far from being the only mech-
(wholly erroneously, the notion of habitus is sometimes un- anism for coordinating supply and demand. Other institu-
derstood in this way). Hence the conclusion that, ultimate- tions, such as networks of interpersonal relations in the case
ly, this oversocialization and undersocialization have much of crack cocaine, the “communities” formed by auction-
in common, both of them regarding agents as closed mo- goers, or “matchmakers” in the economy of boxing, also play
nads, uninfluenced by “concrete, ongoing systems of social their part in the creative regulation of markets. See Phillippe
relations” (6) and “social networks.” Bourgois, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
14. Tirole, Theory of Industrial Organization, 2–3. A little (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Charles W.
further on, the author gives some hints regarding the costs Smith, Auctions (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
 Economic Anthropology 89

California Press, 1990); and Loïc Wacquant, “A Flesh Ped- 38. Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of
dler at Work: Power, Pain, and Profit in the Prizefighting Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin, 1985).
Economy,” Theory and Society 27, no. 1(1998): 1–42. 39. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the
25. Among France’s major employers I have elsewhere Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (London: Routledge
demonstrated a close homology between the space of firms and Kegan Paul, 1986); Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/
and the space of their directors, as characterized by the vol- Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America
ume and structure of their capital. See Pierre Bourdieu, The (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). As we see
State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, trans. Lau- from the analysis of the economic and social determinants
retta C. Clough (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), 300–335. of preferences for buying a house or renting, we may repu-
26. See Fligstein, Transformation of Corporate Control, diate the ahistorical definition of preferences without con-
which describes how the control of firms comes successively demning ourselves to a relativism—which would rule out all
under the sway of the directors in charge of production, mar- rational knowledge—of tastes consigned to pure social
keting, and, ultimately, finance. See also Neil Fligstein and arbitrariness (as the old formula de gustibus non est dis-
Linda Markowitz, “The Finance Conception of the Corpora- putandum, invoked by Gary Becker, suggests). We are led,
tion and the Causes of the Reorganization of Large American rather, to establish empirically the necessary statistical rela-
Corporations, 1979–1988,” in Sociology and Social Policy, ed. tions that form between tastes in the various fields of prac-
William Julius Wilson (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1993); Neil tice and the economic and social conditions of the forma-
Fligstein and Kenneth Dauber, “Structural Change in Corpo- tion of those tastes, that is to say, the present and past
rate Organization,” Annual Review of Sociology 15 (1989): position of the agents in (or their trajectory through) the
73–96; and Neil Fligstein, “The Intraorganizational Power structure of the distribution of economic and cultural capi-
Struggle: The Rise of Finance Presidents in Large Corpora- tal (or, if the reader prefers, the state at the given moment
tions,” American Sociological Review 52 (1987): 44–58. and the development over time of the volume and structure
27. Harrison White, “Where Do Markets Come From?” of their capital).
American Journal of Sociology 87(1981): 518. 40. See Tversky and Kahneman, “Availability.”
28. Weber, Economy and Society, 636. 41. We may call in evidence here the findings of the be-
29. White, “Where Do Markets Come From?” esp. 518. haviorist tradition, represented most notably by Herbert
30. Ibid., 543. Simon, though without accepting this philosophy of action.
31. Phrase in English in original [Trans.]. Herbert Simon has stressed, on the one hand, the degree of
32. See Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations, trans. uncertainty and incompetence that affects the process of de-
Richard Nice (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 49–50. cision making, and, on the other, the limited capacity of the
33. Gary S. Becker, Treatise on the Family (Cambridge: human brain. He rejects the general maximization hypothe-
Harvard University Press, 1981), ix. See also The Economic sis, but retains the notion of “bounded rationality”: agents
Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of may not be capable of gathering and processing all the in-
Chicago Press, 1976). formation required to arrive at overall maximization in their
34. Vilfredo Pareto, Manual of Political Economy, ed. decision making, but they can make a rational choice within
Ann S. Schweir and Alfred N. Page, trans. Ann S. Schweir the bounds of a limited set of possibilities. Firms and con-
(London: Macmillan, 1972), 29–30. sumers do not maximize, but, given the impossibility of
35. See J.-C. Passeron, “Pareto, l’économie dans la soci- gathering and processing all the information required to
ologie,” in Economia, sociologia e politico nell’opera di Vilfre- achieve a maximum, they do seek to achieve acceptable min-
do Pareto, ed. Corrado Malandrino and Roberto Marchion- ima (a practice Simon calls “satisficing”). Herbert Simon,
atti (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2000), 25–71. Reason in Human Affairs (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Uni-
36. Thorstein Veblen, “Why Is Economics Not an Evo- versity Press, 1984).
lutionary Science?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, July 42. See Pierre Bourdieu, Algeria, 1960, trans. Richard
1898, 390. Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
37. James S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving, and the Theo- 43. Alan P. Kirman, “Whom or What Does the Repre-
ry of Consumer Behavior (Cambridge: Harvard University sentative Individual Represent?” Journal of Economic Per-
Press, 1949). spectives, 6(spring 1992): 117–36.
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