Abstract
Stories about the family, work, and the market circulate in law, legal discourse, and beyond. The family, we are told by numerous authorities, is a non-market site, centred on emotional attachment rather than economic transaction. It is a site of interpersonal care, growth, and nurturance that acts as a counter to the excesses of an unbridled marketplace. The market, in contrast, is a site where autonomous beings contract, pursuing their interests efficiently and maximising wealth. This is one masterplot of the market, which, as it operates in the United States, constructs certain household members outside of the market and constructs the market as a sphere of rational exchange and value creation. And while one might think of it as two masterplots – one about home and the other about the marketplace – we understand it as one plot that both delineates and separates the spheres and the kinds of value and exchange within them. The masterplot of the market is a hyper-charged, superordinating narrative put forth by political commentators, academic theorists, and other contributors to public discourse and compounded by law. The masterplot of the market – the sum of a thousand political and cultural stories – structures the ways in which we collectively and culturally think and talk about various kinds of exchange and also leads to a legal system that organises itself around reifying that masterplot, serving the idealised market, and enriching those certain legal actors to the detriment of others.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2025
Recommended Citation
Tait, A. A., Norris, L. P. (2025). The Masterplot of the Market. Law, Narrative and Masterplot: New Research Perspectives. Routledge.