We have become accustomed to economists and politicians talking about “market forces” as if they are immutable laws of the universe. But what exactly is “the market”? Originally an abstract idea from economic theory — the locus of supply and demand — it has come to inform the way we speak about our relationship to the economic system as a whole.

Matthew Watson unpacks the concept to ask what does it really mean to allow ourselves to submit to market forces. And does economic theory really provide insights into the market institutions that shape our everyday life? In tackling these questions, the book provides a major contribution to a deeper appreciation of the dominant economic language of our time, challenging the idea that we can simply defer to the “logic of the market”.