Hypostatize
Etymology
From Greek "hypostasis" ("that which stands beneath, substance"), from "hypo-" (under) and "stasis" (standing). It moved from theology, where it described the substance of a divine person, to philosophy’s sense of wrongly granting substance to abstractions.
verb · /hy-POSS-tuh-tyze/
To treat an abstract idea as if it were a real, concrete thing.
What it names
A subtle error of thought — turning a concept like "the market" or "society" into a solid entity that acts and wants.
Example
To say "history demands" this or that is to hypostatize history — as if it were a person with a will.
Related idea
Reification names the same move and is the more common term; both warn against mistaking a mental abstraction for a thing in the world.