Two Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Sociological Research

Two Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Sociological Research

A Typology and Historical Evolution of Markets Through the Lens of Capitalist Transformations: From Traditional Embeddedness to Surveillance Capitalism

Document Type : Research Article

Author
Somayeh Tohidlou
Department of Social Studies, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran.
10.22084/csr.2026.32374.2453
Abstract
Abstract
The conceptual and physical transformation of the market institution is an objective representation of paradigmatic shifts in the structure of capitalism. This research aims to analyze the historical evolution of markets, explain the shift in the nature of the “logic of embeddedness,” examine the transformation of the power structure between the state, society, and capital, and design a comprehensive analytical model. Adopting a descriptive-analytical method and a historical-comparative approach, this study reviews classical and contemporary theories to provide an institutional analytical matrix. In this matrix, markets are distinguished into seven distinct types—Traditional, Modern, Abstract, Informational, Platform, Surveillance, and Innovative—based on structural variables. The findings indicate that the logic of embeddedness has migrated from social and kinship relations in the traditional phase to rigid bureaucratic laws in the modern phase, and finally to infrastructural and material embeddedness of codes in platform and surveillance markets. Simultaneously, the power structure has shifted from physical material possession toward predictive capacity and behavioral surplus extraction. Analyzing local Iranian markets reveals that due to the dominance of the “code as law” doctrine and the replacement of state legal texts with private platform terms of service, classical regulation has suffered a fundamental stutter, reproducing risks such as labor destabilization and cognitive numbness.
Keywords: Embeddedness, Market Typology, Surveillance Capitalism, Human Agency, Platform Market, Traditional Market.

1. Introduction
Markets are not abstract phenomena, but institutional structures established in time, leaving different impacts across various eras. As Douglass North emphasizes, institutions set the rules of the game (North, 1990). However, based on Karl Polanyi’s theoretical tradition, the economy is always embedded within the layers of society (Kirby, 2021). Mark Granovetter also views the market as a structure where trust and norms guide economic behavior (Granovetter, 2017). The fundamental issue is that with the paradigmatic transformation of technological infrastructures, the meaning of this embeddedness has changed. Today, we face market forms that can no longer be understood through traditional binaries. The core problem occurs when communication infrastructures shift from facilitating tools to governing logic. In the era of “surveillance capitalism,” human lived experience is transformed into raw material for data extraction (Zuboff, 2019). Julie Cohen notes that in informational capitalism, platform infrastructures perform regulatory functions instead of legal institutions (Cohen, 2019). This study aims to formulate a seven-fold typology, providing a foundation to understand domestic platforms as part of a global shift from social embeddedness to infrastructural embeddedness.

2. Materials and Methods
This research employs a systematic qualitative review and document analysis, applying a “directed qualitative content analysis” technique. The research process involved two parallel phases: (1) internal studies (Iran), searching for the keyword “market” in academic databases (Noormags) focusing on sociological approaches and excluding purely positivist economic methods, yielding 30 core articles; and (2) international studies, evaluating over 120 documents and selecting 50 key articles based on theoretical alignment with capitalist transformations. Data from these 80 documents formed the basis for the seven-fold typology. By relying on inductive reasoning derived from the theoretical framework (Polanyi, North, Zelizer, Zuboff), we categorized codes around governance logic, social agency, power definition, and legal structure, integrating them into an analytical matrix to track the shifts from social-traditional embeddedness to infrastructural-algorithmic embeddedness.

3. Data: Institutional Typology and Evolutionary Matrix
The evolution of markets is a function of infrastructural leaps. The following matrix categorizes markets based on key explanatory variables (See: Table 1).

4. Discussion
The comprehensive analysis of market evolution reveals a profound paradigmatic shift in the architecture of power: from the direct possession of physical means of production and industrial capital toward an abstract, yet pervasive, “capacity for prediction and behavioral surplus extraction” (Zuboff, 2019). In traditional and modern historical phases, markets were governed by tangible constraints, localized social ties, and visible state hierarchies. However, in contemporary digital, platform, and smart markets, power operates invisibly through complex algorithmic infrastructures, data streams, and automated code architecture.
In the specific context of the Iranian economy, this global transformation exhibits critical structural anomalies. While historical domestic markets were deeply rooted in social networks, guild ethics, and face-to-face trust, the rapid and uncritical adoption of platform technologies has largely bypassed classic regulatory frameworks. State regulatory and supervisory bodies remain trapped in a physical-bureaucratic paradigm, rendering them structurally ineffective against the sovereign “code as law” doctrine enforced by private platform monopolies (Cohen, 2019). Rather than acting as neutral intermediaries, digital platforms function as private regulators that dictate the rules of exchange, pricing, and labor conditions.
This infrastructural capture profoundly erodes human agency and autonomy. By continuously exploiting cognitive resources and mental bandwidth (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013), modern platform and surveillance markets induce a state of “cognitive numbness,” wherein human actors are systematically reduced to reflexive reproducers of algorithmic prompts rather than autonomous decision-makers. Technology has ceased to be a neutral facilitator of trade; it has evolved into an autonomous governing logic that dictates social life. Consequently, contemporary risks—such as the precariousness of gig-work (Uberization), algorithmic opacity, and real-time behavioral manipulation—are not merely economic externalities, but deep structural threats to human freedom.
Furthermore, systemic hazards include the colonization of future human behavior, wherein the “behavioral surplus” of daily actions is harvested and monetized without explicit consent. This triggers a profound crisis of free will that traditional antitrust laws and physical regulatory instruments are utterly incapable of resolving. Addressing these emerging threats requires moving beyond outdated administrative controls and recognizing that digital platforms have fundamentally rewritten the social contract between capital, state, and society. Ultimately, fostering resilience against algorithmic hegemony demands innovative models of digital governance that protect civil liberties and re-embed economic interactions within democratic human values.

5. Conclusion
This article demonstrates that the market is not a static, neutral mechanism of exchange, but an evolving institutional form continually redefined at the intersection of technological infrastructures and capitalist paradigms. The primary theoretical and analytical finding of this study is the fundamental, structural inversion of Karl Polanyi’s concept of “embeddedness”: whereas historical capitalism witnessed an economy embedded within social relations, moral frameworks, and state-enforced laws, contemporary surveillance and smart capitalism have inverted this logic. Today, society, human lifeworlds, and cognitive faculties are deeply embedded within proprietary algorithmic market infrastructures. Rather than serving as an open space for human agency, the modern digital market functions as an overarching infrastructure that disciplines human behavior, commodifies intimate experiences, and colonizes future actions through real-time behavioral engineering.
To effectively restrain the expanding hegemony of digital platforms and surveillance capitalism, traditional policy and regulatory frameworks—which remain anchored in physical, administrative, and bureaucratic paradigms—must be radically transcended. We must actively redefine fundamental rights within the digital infrastructural space, prioritizing the legal protection of cognitive privacy, mental autonomy, and psychological self-determination. The future preservation of human agency relies entirely on our critical capacity to deconstruct the “black box” of algorithmic governance, expose the hidden extractive mechanisms of behavioral surplus, and restore a protective, democratic boundary between runaway market expansion and the fragile human lifeworld.
Furthermore, as our comprehensive analysis of the Iranian economic context reveals, domestic markets are increasingly subjected to structural disembedding through private platform governance, gig-work precarity, and the uncritical adoption of the “code as law” doctrine. This institutional vulnerability highlights an urgent imperative for developing economies to move beyond obsolete state controls and establish robust, context-sensitive frameworks of digital sovereignty. Without a novel regulatory paradigm tailored to the realities of smart capitalism, human autonomy risks being permanently subsumed by predictive computational systems, leading to widespread cognitive numbness and systemic alienation. Ultimately, forging a new digital constitutionalism, establishing democratic oversight over platform architectures, and re-embedding the market within human-centric social norms remain the defining institutional and political challenges of our contemporary era.
Keywords
Embeddedness
Market Typology
Surveillance Capitalism
Human Agency
Platform Market
Traditional Market
Subjects
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Two Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Sociological Research
Volume 15, Issue 28
September 2026
Pages 197-222