Markets are social constructs that reflect the unique political-cultural construction of their business enterprises and nations. - Neil Fligstein

Property rights, governance structures and rules of exchange are arenas in which modern states establish rules for economic actors. States provide stable and reliable conditions under which firms organize, compete, cooperate and exchange. The enforcement of the laws affects what conceptions of control can produce stable markets. There are political contests over the content of laws, their applicability to given firms and markets, and the extent and direction of state intervention into economy. Such laws are never neutral. They favor certain groups of firms.

The forms of social organization produced the market, not the reverse... Instead of markets calling forth efficient forms of social organization, political and social interactions produced the structuring of sociologically effective markets.

The basis of social skill is the ability to relate to the situation of the ‘other.’ This means that whereas a given strategic actor has interests, he or she must take other people’s interests into account… to imaginatively identify with the states of others.