The Aesthetic Moment in Markets

The relevance of markets for primarily aesthetic products and services is increasing. This is not only the result of a shift in structures of consumption towards goods and services defined by aesthetic features, but also of intensifying competition, based on aesthetic design, in markets for goods and services, which do not primarily service aesthetic functions. The background for these market developments is a fundamental aestheticization of everyday life in prosperous, post-materialist societies. The analysis of aesthetic features of products and services is therefore steadily gaining importance for economic sociology. Such goods and services are associated with a specific form of radical uncertainty. The reason is that aesthetic judgments are socially constituted assessments, so individual and collective aesthetic decisions must be seen, to an especially high degree, as only ever having temporary validity. We present theoretical models, which explain the emergence of aesthetic judgements albeit such radical uncertainty and empirical studies based on the art and wine market.