On the Idea of the Moral Economy

Abstract

The moral economic school, which has flourished among anthropologists, economic historians, and classicists, has received only limited attention from political scientists. This is perplexing, since at its core is to be found an intersection of debates over rational choice theory, the character of modern and premarket societies, and the normative standing of the market—in other words, over issues of formidable importance to our discipline. I seek to correct that neglect by mapping out and critically analyzing the moral economists' conception of modernity, their critique of the economic approach to human behavior and institutions, and their attempt to formulate an Aristotelian theory of the economy. These projects, though flawed, together are more than rich enough to provide fertile ground for political scientists and philosophers. I conclude with a discussion of the moral economists' effort to develop a normative theory of the economy together with a related critique of the market.

Karl Polanyi and the antinomies of embeddedness

“…If integrated as a result of operations with strictly market ends, it moves towards being disembedded through the commodification of labour, land and money each other, which reveals a 'central ambiguity' in Polanyi's approach to studying economic life (Jenkins, 1977, p. 70). Several commentaries on Polanyi observe this ambiguity (Garlan, 1973;Jenkins, 1977;Dupré and Philippe-Rey, 1978;Lie, 1991;Booth, 1994;Barber, 1995;Krippner, 2001;Block, 2003). Krippner (2001, p. 782) deems it a reconcilable contradiction; it arises from Polanyi's objective of refuting analysis based on homo economicus while at the same time 'portraying the market .…”

How Sharing Can Contribute to More Sustainable Cities

“…Other scholars have developed typologies and taxonomies to help make sense of the sharing economy and related terms, including collaborative consumption and peer economy [10]; mesh economy [16]; functional-or access-based economy and asset-light lifestyles [10,13,17,18]; solidarity economy [19]; moral economy [20,21]; alternative economies [22,23]; and gift economy, gifting, and altruism [24,25]. For example, [10] uses collaborative consumption as an umbrella term that covers three distinct areas of sharing and which mostly overlap the sharing economy categories of [15]:…”

The Moral Economy of Cultural Identity

“…Of course, every economy, including the global market economy, is arguably moral in the sense that it is embedded in a certain set of ethics (Booth 1994). Thus, the concept of "moral economy" could also be described as a moralised political economy.…”