Each year the International Monetary Fund (IMF) releases a list of the “World’s Best Economies”. Winners in 2013 included South Sudan, the world’s fastest-growing economy, and Equatorial Guinea, the ...economy with the most investment. If Equatorial Guinea and South Sudan are among our world’s “best” economies, it begs the question: what is a national economy? What does it measure, value or represent? What does it do? Further, what is the relationship between “the” economy and “the” market? What might it yield to hold these apart as overlapping but not identical objects of inquiry? The wager in this chapter is that
