Markets, States, and Networks

Society is often dichotomised as the State and the Market, yet sitting behind both are networks. Markets themselves are deep networks of signals and transactions. Yet markets signal themselves towards cold, instrumental and predatory behaviours. States are also networked although they try very hard to formalize and codify everything, to remove the personal element, to make the network operate like a machine. Bureaucracy is an attempt to create a network that runs on rules rather than relationships.