The economic field Taking the research carried out on the economy of the household the author has attempted to construct an economic theory more respectful of the practical logic of the actors and which integrates the economic and social conditions that give rise to the econo mic arrangements This requires conceiving the market that is usually presuppo sed by orthodox economics as the product of social construc tion The economic field is world governed by specific laws stemming from process of historical differentiation primary among which is the pursuit of properly material interests Contrary to what is implied by mechanistic vision here the eco nomic actors make their field one of forces by deforming to various degrees their neighborhood as in Einsteinian physics The principle of these economic actions and the agents room for manoeuvre lie as the Harvard tradition teaches in the struc ture of the field i.e in the way the distribution of the different capitals is structured and in the correlative power relations which cannot be reduced to interactions or to mechanical adjustments