Article Private/public – common: Economic goods and social orders Angelo Pichierri Universita`degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy Abstract This article endeavors to describe and explain the constitution of modernity, its different trajectories, and its ongoing crisis using the Weberian concept of ‘legitimate order’, and by considering the changing relations between orders. One possible basis for the interpretation of the changing constitution of modernity – which involves, most signif- icantly, a move beyond the great public/private dichotomy – is drawn from economic theory, or rather theories, of goods. The ability of certain orders to produce certain types of goods and to allocate them defines different types of society; in different societies, the same good will differ in nature and occupy a place within different property regimes. Changing relations can also be analyzed on the basis of the capacity of an order to impose upon others its negative externalities, and to manage effectively the pro- duction and allocation of its characteristic goods at different territorial scales. Keywords club goods, common-pool resources, gift, legitimate orders, public goods In a previous piece of work (Pichierri, 2012), I chose to focus on the ‘European social model’ in order to test several theoretical tools arising from a constitutive problem of social sciences: what structural-functionalist sociology sums up with the conceptual pair of differentiation-integration (Pichierri, 2012). In the functionalist interpretation of modernization, society is divided into spheres of activity – subsystems of the social system, institutional areas, etc. – which become more distinct and specialized as the society advances; specialization and separateness create problems of integration and Corresponding author: Angelo Pichierri, Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Societa `, Universita ` degli Studi di Torino, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10153 Torino, Italy. Email: angelo.pichierri@unito.it European Journal of Social Theory 1–19 ª The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1368431015600019 est.sagepub.com by guest on September 9, 2015 est.sagepub.com Downloaded from