The Markets of Truth

The production and the power structures of academic knowledge and truth have been widely scrutinized by Michel Foucault and his followers. Less prominent in the discussion, however, has been the role of economic power in the formation of discourses—which, if at all, has been described along the lines of a critique of capitalism and neoliberalism. This article takes a different and more positive view of the productive role of the markets of education and bookselling as a counterbalance to institutional power. I view academic truth and knowledge as a relational product and the markets of truth as part of a relational economy—highlighting the Greek Agora, the renaissance book market, the “paperback revolution” and finally the decline of the market of truth in the era of Open Access publishing.