This contribution explores the meaning of economization from a novel, and prima facie improbable, theoretical perspective that combines Marxist form analysis and Luhmannian systems theory with a Polanyian account of fictitious commodities and the ‘embedding’ of market economies in market societies. It argues that economization is a chaotic concept that needs disambiguation if its overall impact on world society is to be adequately explained and its consequences explored. In this respect, my contribution distinguishes the complex role of economization within the economy from the relative influence of the economic system on other systems and on world society in general. More