Economization

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The term “ economization ” describes the expansion of the market or its organizational principles and priorities to areas in which economic considerations played a rather subordinate role in the past or which were organized in solidarity or privately; "In this way, more and more goods and practices that were once located outside the market sphere are being converted into" products "that can be traded at a price on a" market "" . It also denotes the advance of market economy thinking into the sphere of private life and the revaluation of many social spheres through the "symbolic order of market society" . In addition to the transfer of principles of order based on the market economy, economization can also occur in the form of an intensification of economic activity in existing markets.

The term commercialization is often used synonymously . While economization is more a term for the penetration of the logic of the economic system into other subsystems, commercialization is more the economic exploitation of already existing services or goods. Economization therefore relates to a change in thinking, commercialization to a change in action. The term marketing is also used synonymously, but is based on something that is already provided by authorities, as a good or service , but not yet traded on markets; he places the emphasis on shifting actors and institutions.

Consequences of the economization

As a consequence of the economization, the spread of market principles can be seen in other areas of society. This leads to the fact that the specific logic of action of the economy system penetrates into other subsystems (lifeworld, media, politics, law, medicine or professional world, etc.) and transfers its operations and orientation there, which are harmful to the functional logic of this subsystem and possibly the purpose undermines this system. On the one hand, this has direct consequences, such as the reorientation of the medical subsystem from the goal of healing to the goal of providing billable services. Furthermore, this leads to the establishment of a “corporate culture” in virtually all areas of life, combined with a change in the professional self-image.

At the same time, this expansion of a “ neoliberal character” also leads to an increase in the contradictions in the subject: “Be mobile, but take care of your family and community, be a team player, but think about your progress, consume until the rind cracks, but take care of that Age ahead, mistrust the state, but obey its laws, despise the old, but value the traditions, learn the virtues but break the rules, trust the market but accept its unpredictability, plan farsightedly, but always risk everything. Those who obey these categorical imperatives live precariously. "

These contradictions in the subject usually lead to a “reluctant adjustment” to the demands of economization. Economization is then neither affirmed nor aggressively fought. An example from professional life would be the doctor in the hospital who fulfills her specified key figures instead of refusing, but still stays longer in order to be able to take care of a patient in more detail than billable.

Complete economization means that not only do additional economic perspectives (profit / loss) exist alongside other, non-economic processes, but that economic principles completely overlay the non-economic principles. This happens when any demarcation between the economy and the affected subsystem is lifted. Subsystems such as justice (right / wrong), politics ( legitimacy / illegitimacy / power ), science (true / untrue), media (information / non-information - whereby mass media are divided into further sub-areas: e.g. news / reports, advertising etc.), are then no longer able to perceive their actual functions, because in such a case these subsystems can no longer distinguish between themselves and others (self / external reference), cf. this system theory (Luhmann) .

Cases of economization

One example is “[...] the organizational reorganization of state administrations , in which internal rationalization and the adoption of market price-simulated cost-income calculations are aimed at improving the quality of public services and at the same time reducing their production costs. Economization strategies such as public reform administration and the like. are based on the model of the private company and are mainly used in public services in the narrower sense ( education and health care , social services , etc.) as well as in the classic sovereign areas of state activity ( police , taxation , military , etc.). Basically, the principle of true cost applies . "

A current example of subjecting non-market areas such as education, science and culture to economic criteria and evaluating them according to cost-benefit calculations is the reform of British science policy : Scientists must therefore in future have the economic and social impact provide evidence of their research in order to receive funding. University basic research is increasingly being cut out of the scientific system in favor of application research (commercial product innovation). At the same time, economization in education can lead to formal aspects such as the number of publications coming to the fore over content-related issues.

Journalism, which is so important for a democratic state, is also under economic pressure. Digitalization in particular contributes to this. It is to be feared that the functionality of journalism will suffer.

Stages of economization

Schimank and Volkmann (2008) name five degrees of economization of functionally differentiated social subsystems, which they define on the basis of the autonomy and given loss and profit goals of a subsystem under consideration. In this way, they try to classify the penetration of different subsystems at a point in time or of a subsystem over time.

step meaning
1 no cost consciousness of the actors; Solvency is given without any problems; Actors can act completely autonomously
2 Avoidance of losses as a “target expectation” for the actors; otherwise the actors act autonomously
3 Avoidance of losses as a “must expectation” of the actors; Some of the actors' autonomy is curtailed (e.g. in the form of rationing)
4th Loss avoidance as a “must expectation” combined with profit targets as a “target expectation”; Actors should adapt their actions to marketability
5 Achieving profit as the only goal of the subsystem

Empirical investigation of economization theses

Whether there is actually an economization of society is controversial. A word frequency analysis with the Google Ngram Viewer by the German-French sociologist Steffen Roth has shown that the diagnosis of the economization of society could be more a semantic artifact than an accurate description of modern societies.

Proponents of the economization thesis, on the other hand, claim that the pure word frequency does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the connotation or the context of a word, especially since the Google Ngram Viewer does not support a sentiment or concordance analysis. In theoretical terms, the problem is also not addressed that with increasing hegemonic effectiveness of a way of thinking this becomes less and less in need of explanation in public usage and consequently occurs less frequently. This argument, in turn, leaves the question of whether it can be empirically verified.

In this sense, the question arises of the scientific verifiability of economization theses. It is currently being investigated as part of a BMBF- funded research project ePol - joint project post-democracy and neoliberalism using text mining methods for the thesis of an economization of the political public in the Federal Republic from 1949 to 2011.

See also

literature

  • Ralf Ahrens, Marcus Böick, Marcel vom Lehn (eds.): Marketing . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen 12 (2015), Heft 3 (thematic booklet from a contemporary historical perspective).
  • Dominic Akyel: Economization and Moral Change: The Expansion of Market Relationships as a Process of the Moral Evaluation of Goods . MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/13, Cologne 2014, [1] PDF .
  • Luc Boltanski , Ève Chiapello : The new spirit of capitalism . UVK, Konstanz 2003, ISBN 3-89669-991-1 .
  • Ulrich Bröckling: The entrepreneurial self. Sociology of a form of subjectivation . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 2007.
  • Franz Kasper Krönig: The economization of society. Systems theoretical perspectives. transcript, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-841-4 ( social theory ), (also: Flensburg, Univ., Diss., 2006).
  • Alessandro Pelizzari: The Economization of the Political. UVK / Raisons d'Agir, Konstanz 2001, ISBN 3-89669-998-9 .
  • Kaspar Molzberger: Autonomy and calculation. On the practice of social economization in the health and hospital sectors. transcript, Bielefeld 2020,

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Luc Boltanski, Ève Chiapello: The new spirit of capitalism, Konstanz, 2003, ISBN 3-89669-555-X .
  2. ↑ Schimank, Uwe (2006): Subsystemic autonomy and political social control ISBN 978-3-531-90102-2 http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783531146843
  3. ↑ Dominic Akyel: Economization and moral change. The expansion of market relations as a process of moral valuation of goods . Ed .: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (=  MPIfG Discussion Paper 14/13 ). Cologne 2014, p. 15-17 ( mpifg.de [PDF]).
  4. ↑ for example in Birger P. Priddat: Before we talk about 'economization': what is 'economic'? In: social world . No. 4 , 2013, p. 417 , doi : 10.5771 / 0038-6073-2013-4-417 .
  5. ↑ Marketing . In: Ralf Ahrens, Marcus Böick, Marcel vom Lehn (eds.): Contemporary historical research . tape 12 , no. 3 , 2015 ( zeithistorische-forschungen.de ).
  6. ↑ Gertenbach, Lars (2007): The cultivation of the market: Foucault and the governmentality of neoliberalism. Berlin: Parodos, p. 127
  7. ↑ Ulrich Brieler: The neoliberal character . In: Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research (Ed.): DISS-Journal . 2013 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Ulf Bohmann, Diana Lindner: Logic of the economization . In: Social sense . tape 21 , no. 1 , July 28, 2020, ISSN  2366-0228 , p. 25-54, here p 43 , doi : 10.1515 / sosi-2020-0002 ( degruyter.com [accessed on July 16, 2020]).
  9. ^ Franz Kasper Krönig: The Economization of Society: System Theoretical Perspectives, 2007, p. 13.
  10. ↑ Alessandro Pelizzari: Economization. In: SocialInfo - Informations sur les politiques sociales en Suisse, dictionary of social policy. Retrieved May 27, 2015 .
  11. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 2, 2011, p. 8; Article The United Kingdom adopts the freedom of science .
  12. ↑ Oliver Fohrmann: In the mirror of money. Education and Identity in Times of Economization . transcript, Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-8376-3583-6 .
  13. ^ Marie Luise Kiefer 2011: The difficult financing of journalism
  14. ↑ Christian Schäfer-Hock 2015: The economization leap of journalism in the digital age. Identification of a break using clear indicators doi : 10.5771 / 9783845264868-164
  15. ^ Rudolf Gerhardt, Hans Mathias Kepplinger and Marcus Maurer 2005: Climate change in the editorial offices
  16. ↑ Uwe Schimank and Ute Volkmann: Economization of society . In: Andrea Maurer (ed.): Handbook of economic sociology . VS-Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, p. 385-386 .
  17. ↑ Weigel, Tilman (2014) Mythos Ökonomisierung, http://www.statistiker-blog.de/archives/mythos-okonomisierung/4475.html
  18. ↑ Roth, S. (2014), Fashionable functions. A Google ngram view of trends in functional differentiation (1800–2000), International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, Volume 10, No. 2, pp. 34–58 (English; online: http://ssrn.com/abstract= 2491422 ).
  19. ↑ Roth, S., C. Clark, and J. Berkel (2016), The Fashionable Functions Reloaded. An Updated Google Ngram View of Trends in Functional Differentiation. In: Mesquita, A. (Ed.) Research Paradigms and Contemporary Perspectives on Human-Technology Interaction. Hershey: IGI-Global, forthcoming. (english; online: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2798759 ).
  20. ↑ Website of the ePol project . Retrieved May 27, 2015
  21. ↑ Molzberger, Kaspar: Autonomy and calculation: on the practice of social economization in health and hospital systems . 1st edition. transcript, Bielefeld, ISBN 978-3-8376-5078-5 ( transcript-verlag.de [accessed February 27, 2020]).