Annual Meeting

The term marketisation has a historical and a social science dimension. The former describes the creation, spread and shaping of markets for goods, services and resources, as well as the implementation of the "cash nexus", i.e. the mediation of social relationships via money. In the case of Britain this centuries-long process goes back to the early-modern period. The social science dimension comprises "neoliberal" policies in modern society like, for example, the delegation of state powers to private actors (e.g. public-private partnerships) or checking and controlling administrative dealings from a business point of view (evaluations, audits). In Britain such policies are generally regarded as a side effect and result of Thatcherism. However, when we take account of both dimensions of marketisation simultaneously, this standard interpretation becomes irritatingly defamiliarised.

The conference plans to bring together historians and social scientists to enable them to conduct such an "irritating" exchange of opinions. Scholars will, on the one hand, consider whether contemporary neoliberal politics mediate qualitatively new experiences of marketisation or whether it can better be regarded as a further development impulse in a historical process which goes back for centuries. What is thrown up by such politics? The structural problems of the welfare state or the revival and continuing modernisation of market economy? A second question which needs to be clarified relates to specific British ideas of equality and inequality, fairness and social justice. These values have grown up over centuries as a concomitant of marketisation. Have they undergone changes in recent times? If so, in what direction? Finally the conference should thematise forms of reaction in civil society to present-day marketisation. Are Britons able to take on the challenge in a creative manner, as might be expected according to advocates of the market? Or aren't there any indications of such a self-subversion of market society?