| THE MORAL ECONOMY is an ancient term that was revived in the late 20th century by the British historian E.P. Thompson to describe the moral basis of resistance to market-based economic upheaval used by English peasants in the 18th century.
It has since found a widespread and growing resonance in anthropology, political science, sociology, ecology and even biblical studies. The links on this page will introduce you to some of the many ways it is currently being used.
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Online videos: ethics & economics
The Debate: Free Market - Mirror or Distortion?
An anthropological take on the free market system: Do free markets accurately reflect human nature?" This panel discussion took place at the Munk Centre for International Affairs at the University of Toronto, Oct. 30, 2008. It was filmed for TVOntario video link »
Panelists include:
- David McNally, professor of political science at York University, and author of Another World is Possible: Globalization and Anti-Capitalism, Winnipeg: ArbeiterRing Publishing, 2005;
- Alan Middleton, assistant professor of Marketing and executive director of Executive Development at York University's Schulich School of Business;
- Finn Poschmann, director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute;
- Nicola Ross, executive editor of Alternatives Journal;
- Peter Ubel, professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan and author of Free Market Madness (Harvard Business Press), due in January 2009
Nobel Prize winner interview: Paul Krugman
An interview by American broadcaster Charlie Rose with recent Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman on the the dynamics of the current economic crisis (23 October 2008): link to video »
Commentary you can't live without
- The empathic civilization: YouTube
- Canadian librarian leads worldwide digital revolt for free knowledge
It began when an academic database proposed increasing the fee it charges the University of Prince Edward Island by 120 per cent. Mark Leggott snapped. “The world’s knowledge is increasingly being held to ransom and available only to those who can pay the fees,” Leggott told the Star ”... [Lesley Clarula Taylor - Toronto Star: August 10, 2010] See here »
- The people as moral economists
Response to this week’s protests by workers and pensioners in Greece was disdainful. CNN logged it under anger and violence. “Tantrums,” said the National Post, thrown by “coddled, bloated and overprotected people.” The Globe and Mail sermonized, “Greeks have been living beyond their means for years, with extravagant social benefits and fudged public accounting,” although you could easily switch “bankers and speculators” for “Greeks.”... [Rick Salutin - The Globe & Mail: May 7, 2010] See here »
- Walk Away From Your Mortgage!... the rising number of folks who are voluntarily choosing not to pay. ... The housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible?
Businesses — in particular Wall Street banks — make such calculations routinely ... [New York Times Magazine: January 7, 2010] See here »
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"Yesterday morning I had the great honour and privilege of officially launching the Institute of Wellbeing and its signature product, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW). The Institute is independent, non-partisan with a newly forming affiliation with the world-class and highly innovative University of Waterloo. The CIW is a new and better way of measuring Canadians’ quality of life..." [The Honourable Roy J. Romanow: June 11, 2009] See statement and links here »
- An insider's view of the sub-prime mortgage mess and those fantastical beasts know as "Collateralized Debt Obligations". It is written by Michael Lewis who wrote the book "Liar's Poker" about his time on Wall Street in the 1980s. "Harboring suspicions about people’s morals and telling investors that companies don’t deserve their capital wasn’t ... the fast track to success on Wall Street." - Read "The End" by Michael Lewis here » Condé Nast Portfolio.com
- Faith and Deficits by Stanley Fish -Looking to the Bible for economic insights. At first glance, Christian doctrine and economic exigencies seem unrelated, but in recent days I have come across two different ways of bringing them together.... The Bible, they tell us, contains 2,350 verses “that have to do with money and possessions.... - New York Times, March 1, 2009 here »
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Popular Articles on Morality & Economics
www.commondreams.org
This article by broadcast journalist Bill Moyers “9/11 and the Sport of God” is adapted from his 2005 address to Union Theological Seminary in New York.
www.counterpunch.org
A short but powerful opinion piece on the contradictions inherent in using the largesse of advanced capitalists to combat the poverty caused by advanced capitalism – “The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation” By Jane Rockefeller
www.longviewinstitute.org
The Longview Institute is based in California and is associated with the work of Prof. Fred Block who seeks alternatives to market fundamentalism in order to build a moral economy and a just society.
www.commondreams.org
“A Moral Economy”, By Fred Block, The Nation, March 2006 (see Block’s other work at the Longview Institute site)
mlb.mlb.com
A newspaper article about a softball tournament near Seattle where opposing teammates helped an injured player complete a homerun even though doing so meant they would lose the game – a triumph of morality over self-interest.
Academic Articles on Moral Economy
www.workandsociety.com
This useful article is entitled “The Idea of a Moral Economy” by Sharon Bolton, Prof. of Management at Strathclyde University in the UK.[pdf download]
www.workandsociety.com
This useful article on “A Moral Modern Economy” claims no specific author but comes from the same website at the University of Strathclyde as the article above by Prof. Sharon Bolton.[pdf download]
www.lancs.ac.uk
An important article from 2004 in which Andrew Sayer of Lancaster University argues that “all economies – not merely pre- or non-capitalist ones - are moral economies”: “Moral Economy”.
past.oxfordjournals.org
A reference to an important early article “The Many Faces Of Moral Economy: A Contribution To A Debate” by Elizabeth Fox Genovese in the journal Past & Present [pdf download]
www.highbeam.com
“Rethinking Moral Economy” An important article from the American Political Science Review by Thomas Clay Arnold in 2001
bjc.oxfordjournals.org
An abstract of an interesting article linking E.P. Thompson’s work on the moral economy with Institutional Anomie Theory: “The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime: Markets, Consumers and Citizens” by Susanne Karstedt and Stephen Farrall, Keele University, England
Communications Technology
www.henryjenkins.org
Henry Jenkins is a Prof. of Humanities at MIT. He is a cultural commentator on the new media technologies, esp. with “Web 2.0”
spot.colorado.edu
This article focuses on the connection between the means of communication and the persistence of the idea of a moral economy: “Communication, global justice and the moral economy” by Prof. Andrew Calabrese of the University of Colorado. [pdf download]
mecteam.blogspot.com
This blog focuses on an eco-economy perspective by some of the same people associated with the book “Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy”.
www.neds-projekt.de
A 2004 conference paper that examines some of the moral assumptions buried within the ecological images of spaceship earth: “’Carrying Capacity’ – the Moral Economy of the ‘Coming Spaceship Earth’” by Sabine Hohler of Hamburg University of Economics and Politics.
www.sciencedirect.com
An abstract of a 2004 article by Michael Goodman on “Reading fair trade: political ecological imaginary and the moral economy of fair trade foods”.
globetrotter.berkeley.edu
This webpage is maintained by the Institute of International Studies at the University of California in Berkeley, and refers to a seminar and conference program on the “Moral Economy of Islam”.
www.cambridge.org
Here you will find a short description of a book on “Islam and the Moral Economy”
www.sup.org
This is a short blurb describing “The Moral Economy of Class” (2006) by Stefan Svallfors who is Professor of Sociology at Umeå University, Sweden.
sp.oxfordjournals.org
An interesting article from 2007 by Lisa Dodson on how poor mothers in the US cope with the moral contradictions forced on them by welfare reform
findarticles.com
An abstract of a book by Evelyn Ruppert on the conflict between professionals and the poor in an urban setting: “The moral economy of cities; shaping good citizens” (2006)
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Interdisciplinary Perspectives
www.rics.org
“The Moral Economy and Operationalising Trust in Construction Management” a 2006 article by H. Smyth of University College London
sth.sagepub.com
This refers to an abstact of a paper by Brain and Charlotte Salter of the University of East Anglia on “Bioethics and the Global Moral Economy”
papers.ssrn.com
“Blood Money, New Money and the Moral Economy of Tort Law in Action”, an abstract of a 2001 article by Tom Baker of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
tps.sagepub.com
“Refugees at Europe's Borders: The Moral Economy of Care” by Charles Watters of the University of Kent deals with the provision of mental health and social care services to refugees (2007).
search.ssrn.com
An abstract of “The Moral Economy of Investing in Child Health: Considerations in Resource Poor Settings” by Daniel Reidpath, Pascale Allotey and Subhash Pokhrel of Brunel University (2007).
www.allacademic.com
Abstract of a 2002 paper by William Hurst on "Conceptual Tools and the Study of Chinese Politics: Moral Economy and Corporatism".
www.informaworld.com
This points to an abstract of a 2008 article by Robert Bud on collaboration in science and the challenge presented by moves to exclusive patents: “Upheaval in the moral economy of science? Patenting, teamwork and the World War II experience of penicillin”.
www.jstor.org
The first page of a 1995 article by Lorraine Daston on “The Moral Economy of Science”.
sss.sagepub.com
This abstract from the Social Studies of Science Journal in 2000 shows how far the concept of the moral economy has come: “Large Telescopes and the Moral Economy of Recent Astronomy” by W. Patrick McCray, Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics, Maryland.
www2.cddc.vt.edu
This article about workers in Egypt is called “Workers at the Point of Production:
Moral Economy and Labor Protest” by Marsha Pripstein Posusney
www.gprg.org
A 2005 article by Wendy Olsen of Manchester and Oxford Universities on land rental in India entitled “Moral Political Economy and Poverty: Four Theoretical Schools Compared” [pdf download]
journals.cambridge.org
An abstract of “A moral economy of corruption in Africa?” by J. P. Olivier de Sardan Professor at L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Marseille.
web.africa.ufl.edu
An interesting article from the African Studies Quarterly in 2006 by Keiichiro Matsumura on “Moral Economy as Emotional Interaction: Food Sharing and Reciprocity in Highland Ethiopia”
www.uapress.arizona.edu
An abstract of a 1992 book by Kevin Gosner on the 1712 Tzeltal revolt against Spanish rule in Chiapas, Mexico: “Soldiers of the Virgin: The Moral Economy of a Colonial Maya Rebellion”.
www2.iisg.nl
An abstract of a 2008 paper by Gareth Austin on Moneylending and Witchcraft: The Moral Economy of Accumulation in Colonial Asante (Ghana).
www.anthrosource.net
An abstract of an interesting 2001 article on ancient ways of managing water in the Peruvian Andes: “The Moral Economy of Water: Equity and Antiquity in the Andean Commons” by Paul Trawick
www.africaresource.com
“The Moral Economy and Prospects of Accumulation in Sub-Saharan Africa: How the IFIs Can Help,” by Bongo Adi of the American University of Nigeria and the University of Tsukuba in West Africa review from 2005
ant.sagepub.com
An abstract of a 2006 article by Sasha Newell about the moral community observed among a community of thieves - “Estranged belongings: A moral economy of theft in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire”.
www.quaker.org
“The Moral Economy” by Paul Heyne, a short 1999 review article which supports the views of Jack Powleson [link], author of “The Moral Economy” and critiques the views of David Korten [link], author of “When Corporations Rule the World”
www.acton.org
A short article by Joseph Klesney from the pro-capitalist Acton Institute on “Joseph Schumpeter and the moral economy”.
The Karl Polany Institute of Political Economy at Concordia University website »
World Council of Churches - globalization links here »
Mennonite Church Canada - Programs/Peace/Globalization of the Economy - Resource List here »
International Observatory - Monitoring of International Crisis here »
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