Abstract

How do we attribute a monetary value to non-market goods? This presentation offers a general sociological approach to this question. I argue that a full-blown sociology of economic valuation must solve three problems: the “why,” which refers to the general place of money as a metric for subjective value in society; the “how,” which refers to the specific techniques and arguments laymen and experts might use in order to elicit monetary value where value is hard to produce; and the “then, what” or the feedback loop from monetary valuation to social practices and representations including, of course, subjective values. I use the case of the valuation of the natural environment to demonstrate how this sequence works empirically. I rely on an empirical investigation of three major environmental pollution legal cases –the maritime oil spills caused respectively by the tankers Amoco Cadiz and Erika in Brittany (France) in 1978 and 1999 respectively, and by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989– to study how French and American plaintiffs and institutions sought to produce monetary valuations for the damages suffered by the marine environment. I then show how the valuation processes implemented in each country ended up, by and large, reproducing the particular conceptions of nature that had motivated their elaboration in the first place.

Reference

Marion Fourcade (Berkeley), “Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature of "Nature" in France and America”, IAST General Seminar, Toulouse: IAST, December 8, 2011, 15:30–17:00, room MS001.