Economization: Markets, Platforms, and Ecologies
About this ebook
Economization breaks with this assumption and offers a bold alternative. Instead of asking what the economy is, Michel Callon, Koray Caliskan, and Donald MacKenzie ask how things become economic in the first place. Nothing is economic by nature—not even markets. Humans are not the only agents that shape economic life: computer programs, oceans, sciences, and even viruses take part in creating value and exchange. Through analyses of markets and digital platforms, this book presents a new way to understand contemporary economies, showing how market exchange relates to gift and barter. Each chapter ends with a practical guide to help readers apply this approach.
Finally, Economization argues that we must remake our economies to keep the Earth habitable. Moving beyond greening markets and ecological economics, it identifies an emerging form—ecologization—that reorients economic life around care, interdependence, and the transport of value across human and nonhuman worlds. Social scientists have long helped make economies; the point now is to help ecologize them.
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About the author
Michel Callon (1945–2025) was professor and honorary member of the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation at the École des Mines de Paris. His most recent book is Markets in the Making: Rethinking Competition, Goods, and Innovation (2021).
Koray Caliskan is professor of strategic design and management and founding dean of the Faculty of Systems and Cultures at Parsons School of Design, the New School, where he teaches economic sociology and design. His most recent book is Data Money: Inside Cryptocurrencies, Their Communities, Markets, and Blockchains (2023).
Donald MacKenzie is professor of sociology at the University of Edinburgh. His most recent book is Inside Digital Advertising: Platforms, Power, and Material Politics (with Koray Caliskan, 2026).
