John Allen: Symbolic economies: the ’culturalization’ of economic knowledge
My question: Why has the scientific work of Ernst Cassirer such an great importance for the argumentation of Allen’s essay?
By talking about the symbolic meanings of economic knowledge in the recent debate there is a tendency to divide this symbolic realm in different sectors. This is the main point Allen criticises in his essay because: “There is no one symbolic sector to the contemporary economy, only economies which display a dexterity of symbolic knowledge in a variety of combinations, with certain sectors distinguished by one particular combination rather than another” (p.40). In the opinion of Allen, who speaks about four symbolic registers (abstract, expressive, affective and aesthetic) which appear in economic activities, a clear separation of this registers is impossible. The problem is that a lot of scientists (Lash/Urry, Reich, Coyle, Zukin or Leadbeater), each in a different way, try to “codifying the uncodable” (p.40). Each of these scientists driven by a “tension” to codification tries to draw clear distinctions among the symbolic realms, e.g. between cognitive and aesthetic (Lash/Urry).
To show the registers of the symbolic knowledge Allen sees a need of a more systematic approach. This approach is given by the work of the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer, who “[…] became convinced early on that a cognitive, science-based view of knowledge was unjustifiably limited” (p.48). Cassirer, who started his analysis in comparison of “exact” sciences (like mathematics, with its clear codification) to others, found out, that every system of meaning was only one form of meaning, embedded in a special framework of symbols, signs and knowledge (see p.48). This thesis, made by Cassirer, is translated to the symbolic meaning in economic culture: every symbolic approach (e.g. a cognitive approach is only one thinkable method of entering the symbolic realm). Further, Allen uses the threefold distinction of symbolic functions, argumented by Cassirer: expression, representation and signification. Each creates a special approach to the symbolic meaning: Expression as an “immediate, non-discursive mode of experience” (p.49), representation as a form of codified language and signification as a systematic manipulation of abstract symbols, like mathematics. All these three symbolic qualities work together absolutely inseparable, which is shown by Allen through the example of film, which combines all of these symbolic qualities as well. It is a codified language (understood by the audience as a film language), abstract (shown two-dimensional), and expressive.
So in this essay the importance of the work of Ernst Cassirer is crucial for Allen’s argumentation against any form of distinction within the symbolic realm, because he was one of the first, who saw and described this different, inseparable qualities. Based on this solid argumentative ground Allen can develop now his model of symbolic registers and criticise the models of former theories.
Don Slater: Capturing markets from the economists
My question: What is the special quality of advertisement in the context of economy?
With a familiar problem, but on a different, more specific level as John Allen, Don Slater struggles in his essay also against a kind of unjustified separation. His topic is the realm of production and its cultural environment. As Slater stresses: “[…] we find that economic and cultural categories are logically and practically interdependent: neither can be reduced to or separated from the other” (p.59).
Slater argues that every kind of production is inconceivable without any social or cultural influence. The product, its market and the competition cannot be separated from the cultural world and its social values which surround every commodity and it’s consumer and reverse.
The problem is that economic analysis (e.g. Lancaster) focuses only on the objective properties of a product without building a bracket of other influences. On the opposite the cultural view in a kind of dematerialisation reduces the product to the status of a sign or semiotic meaning. Both views are in the opinion of Slater incorrect and give an distorted image of the product itself.
The only thing, which helps to find a way out of this dilemma is the advertisement, because it combines economic thoughts and cultural or social influences. Advertising a product places this good in a special defined market with its special competitors. In two case studies Slater stresses the fact how important it is to find or define the right market for the right product. So the advertising of a product in defining it for a special market, embodies economical strategic qualities. Simultaneous the advertisement refers to social or cultural conditions, and combines so the economic and symbolic or semiotic qualities of a product. So advertisement, viewed and explored in a right, not short sighted way, opens new possibilities to understand the two inseparable sides of a product within its economic and cultural market.
H.Vogel: Economic perspectives
My question: What is so problematic about “leisure” in an economic framework?
The problem starts already by Vogel’s definition of leisure: “Leisure has more recently been conceptualized either as a form of activity engaged in by people in their free time or, preferably, as time free from any sense of obligation and compulsion” (p.4). Vogel gives a definition which made leisure to a kind of product which fits in the economic framework he creates about this term. Leisure, situated in diagrams of time or productivity is so a defined, economic and, that’s the most important point, a factor which is measurable.
So everything touching the cultural or mental realms of leisure is excluded in this model, a fact which is also recognized by Vogel: “Naturally, in so defining leisure by what it is not, metaphysical issues remain largely unsolved” (p.4). This general problem remains unsolved in his whole and leads to a lot of problems outside the economic view of leisure and entertainment. Vogel itself gives the example of the production of a movie (p.18). In this case he remarks all this economic points of initial capital investment, marketing, promotion or the term of elasticity of price for a special good. But in fact all these great theories about the demand of leisure are failing in this case, because there is no recipe for creating a movie, which automatically guarantees an economic successful movie. At this point the missing cultural quality comes into play and shows the borderlines of this pure economic model, which makes a treatment of “leisure” so difficult.
Edward Castranova: On Virtual Economies
My question: What seems to be the most important factor, which creates the pleasure in participating in online games?
In his assumptions about something like a “game theory” Castranova mentions three important factors: the emotional well-being (as a general goal of human behaviour), confrontation with challenges and a kind of reward for overcoming these challenges or puzzles. For my opinion the importance of challenges, especially the role of constraints within online-games, is crucial for the whole pleasure debate. Castranova sees this constraints as the important factor in the differentiation of real and a cyberspace market: “Put succinctly, in a normal market the demanders are willing to pay money to have constraints removed, but in a games market they will pay money to have constraints imposed” So the pleasure lies in the fact, that it’s hard or takes time, money or efforts to solve a certain puzzle or achieve a certain status.
This aspect of constraint is omnipresent in the whole world of cyberspace games. Every player starts the game with a weak avatar, which makes it harder to participate in the beginning and also makes it harder to switch or leave the game after spending time, money and efforts to reach a better avatar-status with more power. Also the limited size of online-game-participants can be seen as a form of constraint. And at least the game owners with their unlimited power in create and destroy personal online-efforts of players is a sort of constraint. They use it and provoke so an enormous outcome of reactions via postings in forums or email-communication which is described by Castranova as “only the tip of the iceberg of player input”. But every player knows the influence and power of the game owners, everybody should know that he is part of an economic business and not of an democratic outerworld-online-society. Every player knows the constraints which can appear inside the structure of the whole game, but nevertheless he enjoys it . This also stresses the argument that constraints (in the form of challenges or whatever) are the key factor in the understanding of the pleasure in participating online-games. 
