Georg Rilinger (MIT)

The Social Order of Digital Markets

Economic sociology assumes that markets are emergent phenomena. This assumption is problematic for many digital markets. While some platforms display emergent dynamics, others are the product of top-down engineering. Turning emergence from an assumption into an empirical variable, the paper proposes a new framework to explain the order of digital markets. Digital markets are nested in organizations where designers build, manage, and alter the platforms as feedback-control systems. The basic parameters of competition, cooperation, and valuation become design decisions that shape the subsequent degree of emergent order in the market. Drawing on literatures in strategic management, system information research, and economics, the paper reconstructs designers’ rationale behind basic architecture choices. It isolates three factors that designers consider: what algorithm is required to match the different user groups, how interests are aligned between them, and the degree to which required information inputs can be standardized. Depending on these criteria, designers will create a system that is more or less amenable to emergent dynamics of competition, cooperation, and valuation. The resulting taxonomy suggests a research agenda for a sociology of social engineering. This research will explore the social conditions that enable or prevent designers’ from developing the architectures they envision.