海角社区下载

The Market as Master Oracle

In the lecture, I first outline a general social theory of oracular power. I define ‘oracles’ as any entities upheld as the highest authorities on the boundaries of knowledge and ignorance in different eras. They are entities that shift and transform, particularly in times of deep uncertainty. Oracles have distributional effects, both legitimating and threatening perceptions of the righteousness of wealth divides in different societies. The framework I introduce challenges the tendency to bifurcate expertise, treating metaphysical oracles – priests, clerics, new age psychics – differently from secular ones: economists, financial advisors, and judges. I suggest we need a general theory of oracular power that breaches science-religion divides, and I explain why by discussing different sources of anti-democratic resurgence today. Finally, I turn to the market. I posit it as the master oracle today: a source of veneration that offers the veneer of accessibility to the poorest groups while cementing violent power hierarchies.

Speaker:

Linsey McGoey is Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. She is known as a pioneer of ignorance studies, an interdisciplinary field that explores the role of strategic ignorance in economic exchange. Her books include The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World (2019, Zed) and Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies (2022, co-edited with Matthias Gross).