I interpret Fred to be using the term "society" in an historically  
descriptive sense.  We understand the meaning of "market" by a process of  
abstraction from the historical actions of individual persons and a summing  
up of their results.  The "market" did not decide on an historical price;  
individuals meeting in a market context agreed upon a price in an exchange  
transaction.  If a simultaneity or series of such transactions took place,  
then we abstractly can say something about the stability of a price in a  
particular market for a specific historical time period.  To say that the  
market "decided" anything is a misuse of language if it means any more than  
an historically aggregative statement of of a sum of individual decisions  
and actions.  
  
So far as "social construction" is concerned, this means that the sum of  
actions of a number of individuals create a pattern of interaction which  
each takes to be the context within which their own actions are to be  
conducted.  For example: I went to the bank this morning to resolve an error  
that some clerk or other made in my account.  The "bank" did not make the  
error, a person did.  I resolved it by speaking with a supervisor who  
entered a correction in the account.  Rules of civilized discourse were  
followed by both of us because we both, perhaps subliminally, recognize that  
our transaction would go more smoothly if we followed them.  We did not  
invent them; they were invented piecemeal over the past few millenia by  
countless anonymous individuals.  "Society" didn't invent anything.  
"Society" is not a decisionmaking entity.  It is a figure of speech that  
helps us thing about the actions of many people.  We have to be careful  
about the terms we use.  Otherwise, we'll say things like "America is at war  
on terror" and communicate nothing other than some sort of vague  
expostulation.  
  
Samuel Bostaph