Care for particular others

There are some similarities but more differences in the accounts Radford and Levi give about the development and operation of markets in prison camps.
Auschwitz was a firm specializing in labor hire. The prisoners were hired to factories specifically sited in the area; IG Farben made Buna, a form of synthetic rubber, at Birkenau two kilometers from Auschwitz. (Frydman) There was also an aircraft factory and other industries at Birkenau. The earliest prisoners were put to building an entire town there. The SS was paid 2 marks per prisoner per day by these companies. (Frydman) The selections were on the basis that if the prisoners were too sick or weak to produce labour value higher than 2 marks they went to the gas chambers. The old, infirm and children went straight from the transports. (Frydman) Another business conducted was the recycling of the prisoners personal belongings. This was the stock that was exchanged across the wire for food. The work parties had ample opportunity to exchange these goods in the factories and town to which they were sent daily. (Frydman) In contrast the prisoners in Radford’s camp were not forced into labour although they did engage in trade outside the camp itself and between different sections of the camp.
The concentration camp social structure Levi survived was very different from that described by Radford. The Jews were at the bottom and treated the harshest. There were also other groups including German political prisoners, convicted criminals from Germany and Poland, Gypsies, Russian prisoners of war, homosexuals, prostitutes and others deemed anti-social by the SS. The hut blockalteste and kapo enjoyed privileged status, better food and the ability to inflict beatings or death on those they controlled. (Cohen, 2001) The hierarchy was imposed on the prisoners by the Germans. One of the basic Nazi aims was to demoralize, humiliate, ruin their prisoner, not only physically but also spiritually. Their spies were constantly among the prisoners to keep them informed about every thought, every feeling, and every reaction they had. There was only one law in Auschwitz - the law of the jungle. (Gisella, 1984) The situation in Radford’s camps was totally different. The men were already part of a cohesive structure with shared norms that Radford describes as more sociological than market based. (Radford p81) In Radford’s camp a hierarchy was already in place in the form of the ranks the captives held prior to captivity. All the men in Radford’s camp knew they were being monitored by the Red Cross and that they had a high probability of being released eventually. Levi’s cohort knew their lives could be terminated randomly. I suggest the differences are profound enough to affect the way the exchanges took place.
(Rosenbaum, 2000) offers a definition of a market that includes a voluntary and specified exchange, typification, regularity and competition. Some of these features existed in Radford’s camp, less in Levis. For example specified exchange was common in Radford’s in that the unit of exchange was cigarettes. Food was bought and sold with them. In Levi’s camp the exchange was direct, food for any item considered desirable. The ability to survive depended on the agents luck in finding or stealing these items. Both Levi and Radford describe a labor market that developed in the camps. It was possible to arrange for a number of services to be performed in return for a suitable exchange. Polanyi describes an exchange as a form of integration where the distribution of goods takes place via price-making markets. (1957, 1971 in Swedberg, 2003 p28) In Radford’s camp the price was in cigarettes. In Levi’s camp a barter system was used. A labor theory of value implies only value from labor has merit. In Levi’s Auschwitz this took on special meaning. Only those fit enough to work survived a daily selection that ended in the gas chamber for those not of value. (Cohen,2001.) It required a great deal of time to accumulate the capital to begin a trading stock because the decision had to be made on how much to consume and how much to save. In Radford’s case the Red Cross replenished the trading stock on a regular basis. The bribery necessary to find work in the laundry rather than building roads meant the difference between life and death. A great deal of time was spent in making contacts in other work groups to facilitate exchange of goods and positions. (Cohen, 2001
The different accounts of Levi and Radford give rise to interesting questions on the implications for how we think about the relationship between markets and other social institutions. In the neo-classic account of markets there are three necessary conditions for Pareto optimality: There are large numbers of buyers and sellers so no one has the ability to manipulate the market. There is no inter-dependence between individuals other than through their all being participants in the market and there exists complete information available to all relevant parties. (Seabright, 2004 p99) The Levi and Radford stories show how non-optimal prison camp exchanges were. A more sociological view of actions in markets seems necessary, with a conceptual view of the social institutions that comprise markets. (Fligstein, 1996) According to Fligstein markets can be characterized as social situations in which goods are exchanged for a monetary price and these situations can come into being only if the following three elements are present: property rights, governance structures and rules of exchange. Property rights are defined as social relations that determine who is entitled to the profit from an exchange. Governance structures consist of rules for how to organize an exchange as well as competition and co-operation. And rules of exchange determine under what conditions exchange can take place and who can take part. Fligstein also emphasized the role of conflict and struggle in the market. (Swedberg, 2003 p118-130). Bordieu starts from the idea that economic life is largely the result of the encounter between actors with special dispositions in the economic field. It is dominated by its dynamics. Prices are determined by the structure of the field and not the other way round. This is similar to Fligstein’s idea of organizational fields in which actors orient themselves to each other. They agree the notion of networks to analyze markets is unsatisfactory since it focuses exclusively on social interactions. (Swedberg, 2003 p118-130). For Granovetter networks of personal relations are where transactions must take place. He suggests it is a commonplace that buying and selling relationships rarely approximate the spot market model of classical theory. (Granovetter, 1995 p225) In both camps networks of personal relations were a crucial aspect of exchange. Granovetter has also used the embeddedness approach to explain the stickiness of prices. Two crucial aspects of markets little explored by economic sociologists are how prices are set and the role of law. Weber said money processes are the product of conflicts of interest and of compromise and are thus the result of power constellations. (Swedberg, 2003p118-130) This was certainly the case in both camps.
References
Cohen, J. ( 2001.) Website accessed June 23, 2004 http://www3.sympatico.ca/mighty1/mothers/sky1.htm
Fligstein, Neil (1996) “Markets as Politics: A Political Cultural Approach to Market Institutions,” American Sociological Review, 61(4): 656-673.
Frydman, A Website accessed 24 June 2004 http://www.purs.org/survivors/alive_winter.htm
Granovetter, Mark (1974 or 1995) Getting a job: a study of contacts and careers. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Levi, P (2000 [1958]) If this is a man, London: Abacus. Chapter 8, “This side of good and evil.”
Perl G, (1984) Website accessed 23 June 2004 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERauschwitz.htm
Pitelis, Christos (ed) (1993) Transaction Costs, Markets and Hierarchies, London: Blackwell.
Radford, R. A. (1945/1996) “The Economic Organisation of a POW Camp” Excerpted in Frank Stilwell and George Argyrous (eds) Economics as a Social Science, Sydney: Pluto Press.
Rosenbaum, Eckehard F. (2000) “What is a Market? On the Methodology of a Contested Concept” Review of Social Economy 58(4): 455– 482.
Seabright, Paul. (2004)The company of strangers : a natural history of economic life
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press,
Swedberg, Richard. (2003) Principles of economic sociology
Princeton, N.J. : Woodstock : Princeton University Press
Zelizer, Viviana (1996) “Payments and Social Ties,” Sociological Forum, 11(3): 481-495.