This modern reassessment of economic anthropology contributes to a redesigned market theory that distinguishes between individual, competition-and-trust-defined markets, and policy-oriented objective markets determined by goods, time, and area. The author presents fresh insights into the allocation of collective goods, which in turn help formulate a critique of the economic strategies of the World Trade Organization and the World Bank Group. In this volume, as in the lectures from which it originates, the author integrates his expertise in competition theory and ethnological field research in law and anthropology to address the economic and legal conditions of economic justice in a multicultural world.



"Wolfgang Fikentscher has written a book that has the potential to make a great impact on the globalization debate. This book contains the essence of the author's more than 20 years of work in social and economic anthropology, and his even longer experience as a prominent expert in the field of international business law. The book is not only a richly detailed and well-written report on the diversity of economic cultures and traditions, but a valuable guide to the scattered debate on how to address questions arising within a globalized economy."—The American Journal of Comparative Law