RETHINKING THE MARKET - SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE BABY MARKET IN THE UNITED-STATES, 1870-1930

This article seeks to question the purely economic model of the market and to replace it with a new model of "multiple markets" emphasizing the interdependence between the economic sphere and socio-cultural factors. It aims to illustrate this thesis by showing how the "exchange" price of adopted children has varied in response to changes in their economic and affective roles. Whereas in the 19th century the value of a child was determined by its usefulness or its capacity for work, in the 20th century a new definition of the child -economically useless but affectively precious - was established. This new value definition stimulated the development of a market in which, paradoxically, the price of an economically useless child became much greater than the value represented by a useful 19th century child, which has led to increased monetarisation and commercialisation of the life of the child.