Part 13 (1/2)

People can be attracted by the most unexpected characteristics of merchandise, and can be enticed to develop addictions to color, form, brand name, odor Sometimes the representamen is price, which is supposed to reflect the ele criteria: a trend, a product's sexiness; a buyer's gullibility, ego, or lack of econoh not always appropriately The object is the product itself, be it a manufactured item, an idea, an action, a process, a business, or an index Except for the e of object for object, every known market object is represented by some of its characteristics

That these representations oes to shoentities participate in the n So and constitute so (an idea, object, or action) as part of one's self-constitution

This is the interpretant-understood as process, because interpretations can go on ad infinitues that a course of study was successfully completed; co As a sign, bread can stand for everything that it embodies: our daily bread; a certain culture of nourishrain, inprocess Syion, is also part of the interpretation of bread as a sign

Interpretation of an acaderound (university attended, title conferred), context (there are streets on which mostly lawyers and doctors live), function (how the title affects one's activity), and future expectations (a prospective nobel Prize winner) Likeith computers: Intel inside, or Netscape browser, networked or stand-alone, a Big Blue product, or one put together in the back alleys of so to the pren unless considered as such, interpretation is equivalent to the constitution of huh their product A product is read as being useful; a product can be liked or disliked; a product can generate needs and expectations Self-constituting individuals validate theh their activity as represented by the product of this activity, be it tangible or intangible, a concrete object, a process (s are also part of the process of interpretation A conglo shot of the abstract consumer, behind whom are all the others who constitute their individuality through the transactions that make up the market A used car or computer salesman, a small retailer, and a university professor identify theh the market Each is represented by some characteristic feature of his or her work

Each is interpreted in the ood used car, some a cheap, used computer, others a leather wallet, others an education or counsel The fore from simple observation of the h products, exchange of goods, or legislation

As a place where the three elens ofto a transaction or not)-coether, the market can be direct or ulated A producemall are examples of real market space The market takes on mediated, conventional, and symbolic aspects in the case where, for example, the product is not displayed in its three-die, a description, or a promise Mail-order houses, and the stock and futures h they are derived from direct, real markets Once upon a ties filled with the odors, tastes, and textures of the products brought in by shi+ps It is now a battery of ns on order slips or co of the product that is traded

In our day, the stockcenter

Pressures caused by the demand for optimal market efficiency were behind this transformation Nevertheless, the time involved in the new market semiosis is as real and necessary as the time of transactions in the otiations; that is, only the amount of time needed to ensure the cooperation of the three eles constitute thematic context affects market cycles and the speed at which market transactions take place This is why a deal in a bazaar takes quite a bit of ti are coulations always affect the dynae of thedevices between the object represented in thethe satisfaction of their needs and desires No matter what type of market we refer to, it is a place and time of mediations What defines each of the known ulated round markets) is the type of mediation nificance is the dyna anticipated our current experience of the s, e used to express the object, and the interpretation, leading or not to a transaction, constitute the structural invariable in every type of socio-economic environment In the so-called free idly planned econo the three elements is the variable, not the eleiven context can be influenced in the way associations are made between the uage is rich in testimony to commerce, from the very sie captures ownershi+p characteristics, variations in exchange rates, the ever-expanding horizon of life facilitated through market transactions It is within this fra the idea that, together with practical experiences of human self-constitution, e of values are parents to notation, to writing and to literacy

Expectations of efficiency are instantiated, within a given scale of human activity, in market quantities and qualities nobody really calculates whether rice production covers the needs of huh entertain on Earth today The immense complexity of the market machine is reflected in its dynaer be handled by, or made subject to the rules and expectations of literacy Market processes follow a pattern of self-organization under the guise of many parameters, some of which we can control, others that escape our direct influence upon thees of extreme specialization are part of market dynamics in the sense that they offer practical contexts for new types of transactions Netcono net, network, and economy In less than one year, the term was used to describe a distributed commercial environment where extre part of the global economy But the consequences of the Netconomy are also local: distribution channels can be eli co prices Coal services are h the virtual shops of the Netconomy

To see how the practical experience of the e and literacy, let us now examine the market process as se products, people trade themselves Various qualities of the product (color, sn, etc), as well as qualities of its presentation (advertising, packaging, vicinity to other products, etc), and associated characteristics (prestige, ideology) are a the implicit components of this trade Sometimes the object per se-a new dress, a tool, wine, a hoe it projects Secondary functions, such as aesthetics, pleasure, confor needs In market semiosis, desire proves to be just as ie part of the world, self-constitution is no longer just a question of survival, but also one of pleasure The higher the semiotic level of the n systems involved, their extent and variety-theneeds

Hu life is very different from the human activity that results in surplus and availability for market transaction In the first case, a subsistence level is preserved; in the second, new levels of self-constitution are e, initially riculture, constituted a scale of hun systee

Surplus can be used in e differentiation becaressively necessary

Rituals, adornion, means of accumulation, and means of persuasion are examples of differentiations All these uses pertained to settled patterns of human interaction and led to products that were more than mere physical entities to be consumed To repeat, they were projections of individual self-constitution

Behind each product is a cycle of conception,of utility and per, from its rudimentary forms to the forms celebrated in literacy, and its participation in the constitution of theas produced in surplus to cover the need to enerated

The market of merchandise, services, slaves, and ideas was co money for their life's salt, as Ros constituting thematic framework of an activity in which production (work) and the h which workers constituted themselves underwent a similar differentiation As work becae of the product also caing goods pertinent to survival corresponds to a scale of hueneity People who have excess grain but need eggs, people who offer meat because they need fruit or tools, do not require instructions for using what they obtain in exchange for what they offer Small worlds, loosely connected, constitute the universe of their existence The rather slow rhythm of production cycles equals that of natural cycles A relatively uniform lifestyle results frohtly differentiated in structure Together, these characteristics constitute a fra of experience This market, as li experience

Today's er environments of common or shareable experience Rather, they are fraainst another This statement requires son, and skills, but also a language of optih which people constitute thely, the es our products speak The comatic framework of the civilization of illiteracy is the result of expectations made possible by levels of huinally support

This comes at a cost, in addition to the dissolution of literacy: the loss of a sense of quality, because each product carries with itself not only its own language, but also its own evaluation criteria The product is one ofits own justification Its value is relative, and soe to buy, or the decision to look for soave us a sense of order and quality of literate language use, do not apply to products Previous expectations of h means of literacy Theproducts no longer appears to participants in the ion or ethics, but rather as a convenient justification for political influence Through regulation, politics inserts itself as a self-serving factor in market transactions

Transaction and literacy

A visit to a shborhood store used to be pri a particular need, but also an instance of communication Such small ed news and gossip, usually with an accuracy that would put today's journalism to shame The supermarket is a place where the demands of space utilization, fast movement of products, and low overhead make conversation counterproductive Mail-orderpractically do aith dialogue They operate beyond the need for literacy and huht to aa credit card nu it read automatically and validated via a networked service

Literacy-based transactions involved all the characteristics of written language and all the i pertinent to the transaction Literacy contributed to the diversification of needs and to a better expression of desires, thus helping markets to diversify and reach a level of efficiency not possible otherwise With required education and laws prohibiting child labor, the productive part of people's lives was somehow reduced, but their ability to be more effective within modes adapted to literacy was enhanced Thus her productivity and diversified de back to the Phoenician traders), writing and the subsequent literacy contributed to strategies of exchange, of taxation- which represents the most direct forarding s in and through the market Written contracts expressed expectations in anticipation of literacy- supported planning

There areof raw material and the final sale and consue is constituted, very concrete in soes areand transaction cycles, reduce risk, maximize profits, and ensure the effectiveness of the transaction on a global level Literacy cannot uniformly accommodate these various expectations The distributive nature of market transactions cannot be held captive to the centralis the efficiency of marketin the Soviet Union and its satellite countries-highly literate societies-is proof of this point The expected speed of otiations require languages of optiuity Sou can offer Products and procedures are h interactive links between all parties involved in the effort of designing,them As fashi+on shows become prohibitively expensive, the fashi+oninteractive presentations that put the talent of the designer and the desire of the public one click away from each other

The expectation of freedonore national or political (and cultural and religious) allegiances, which, after all, e, as well as from all the representations and definitions of freedon systee in particular, are not neutral means of expression, one individual has to specialize in the signs of other cultures There are consulting firms that advise businesses on the cultural practices of various countries They deal in what Robert Reich called symbol manipulation, semiotic activity par excellence These fir business in japan, for instance, that the japanese have a penchant for exchanging gifts Business cards, reat importance These consultants will also advise on custoh literacy, such as in which countries bribery is the most efficient way to do business