We take markets for granted. Whether it's your local car boot sale, the supermarket or the most sophisticated financial exchange, markets are so interwoven into everyday life that we rarely stop to think about them. Yet they are ingenious human creations: organized and adapted, regulated and legislated for. They evolve over time, and they create both winners and losers.
In this episode of the podcast, George Miller speaks to Philip Roscoe, professor of management at the University of St Andrews and author of What are Markets For? They discuss why a shopping trolley is more interesting than it at first appears, how markets of all sorts come to seem natural and inevitable, and what happens when we start to see them as things that people make – and can therefore remake.
Philip Roscoe is Professor in Management at the University of St Andrews.
Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-are-markets-for
The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2026/08/14/podcast-theres-more-to-a-shopping-trolley-than-meets-the-eye/
Timestamps:
01:24 - Tell me about your career path
05:25 - What lens do you see markets through?
07:52 - What is the significance of the shopping trolley?
10:46 - Why do markets feel inevitable?
15:28 - Was the 1980s a critical turning point for the idea of market thinking?
19:50 - Why is Santa a theme in your book?
26:02 - What is the darker side of markets?
30:44 - What do you think the prospects are for changing away from what we currently have?
38:07 - What is one thing you'd like the listeners to hang on to as an idea?
Intro music:
Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US
","author_name":"Bristol University Press"}