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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:49 2006 |
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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
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