Enlightened Cosmic Verdicts

In this chapter we examine supermarket growth in the UK. This phenomenon provides a particularly useful case, we argue, because developing an understanding of what has given it shape and direction underscores the point made in different ways by all contributors to this volume, namely that economic activities do not stand alone but are, simultaneously and significantly, social, cultural, political, governmental and, crucially, moral in character – something the concept of moral economy is designed to bring to the fore (e.g. Sayer 2000, 2007). If that concept is to have any analytical purchase, however, the practices – of justification, of representation, of judgement, of valuation, of organisation, of distribution and exchange, and so on – of which moral economies are composed have to be linked to a material ground, to the wider forms of social, cultural and political life which they are intertwined with and help sustain (Tully 2008). This cannot be a matter of opposing one set of generalised and totalising claims (on, for example, the moral virtues or vices of competition) with another. Rather, it is a matter of treating those claims as themselves embedded features of complex contemporary social, economic and governmental landscapes. The question we want to pose in what follows is, therefore, where, when and in relation to what do moral economies acquire their concrete form? What, that is, are the practical conditions of their possibility? One of the striking features of the forms of economic practice grouped together under the label of ‘neoliberalism’ is precisely the limited nature of any internal interrogation of the social, political and economic conditions of their own possibility. These forms of practice are presented as outside morality and politics – as amoral and apolitical – and their presentation as such reinforces the idea that they exist in a world in which there are, for instance, clear lines of demarcation between the public and the private (Sayer 2007, Harvey 2007). Economic ‘success’ and ‘failure’ stories in the private sector are framed as just that, i.e. private, and do not implicate either the public or the state. Insofar as malpractice is identified, it is as regrettable slips on the part of those involved rather than structural matters. Such narratives are not merely mythological, they are fraudulent – serving to obscure the nature of the hybrid arrangements that link government to business, and in ways that benefit those advancing them. UK supermarket growth, an emergent moral economic form with a particular spatial distribution which is parasitic on patterns of low paid, insecure work and tithed consumption, is a case-in-point. As we shall show, the parameters and profitability of the contemporary supermarket chain’s fields of activity are the product of direct and ongoing state intervention and public subsidy. The process of recovering what is actually taking place in such hybrid spaces is, however, difficult and requires a shift of analytical focus. If we want to explore the material grounds of contemporary moral economies, we will have to grapple with the fact that their elaboration takes place across many different sites and settings and in many different ways – the practices in question are highly localised/localising, fragmented and heterogeneous, both here-and-now and over time. Capturing this requires a genealogical approach, enabling us to identify the multiple points of origin out of which contemporary moral economic formations have arisen as part of a ‘history of the present’ (Foucault 1977, Tully 2008). We will use the example of supermarkets in order to make this methodological case, focusing specifically on how the growth of supermarket chains has fed into and fed off a remodelling of the built environment, the labour market and the tax and benefit system in the UK to become a constitutive element of a new strain of post-crash (bio)politics organised around harnessing and exploiting poor populations for private gain but at public expense.

The analysis of the article focuses on the consideration of the essentiality of human nature. We are talking about the foundations of individual development that directly affect the formation of human existence and society. As the above aspects are considered the spiritual nature of the individual and the ethical universals that affect it - spiritual knowledge. It is with the soul that man as a microcosm concentrates in himself all the elements and manifests all the properties of the "great world". And it is the internalization of spiritual knowledge in the human experience that forms virtues - activities that create good in the world. In particular, it is emphasized that the harmony of soul and body, the orderliness of their relationship, is formed directly under the influence of "whole knowledge". This is what reproduces the monolithicity, the integrity of the human personality, ensures its mental and physical health. Conversely, the violation of this balance leads directly to the loss of the vital connection between the spiritual and physiological principles of human nature, causes the destruction, splitting of the individual, his spiritual and physical degradation. In this regard, it was found that the possibility of harmonious human development is healing, that is "reproduction of the monolithic nature of the spiritual and physiological nature." It is achieved only when the individual conforms to the conditions of the integrity of the higher, transcendent order - the spiritual laws. The latter provide the principles and potential for the development of human coexistence. Thus, the study of the meaning and influence of spiritual knowledge on human life, makes it possible to note that no materialist knowledge aimed at the development of technological and economic progress is able to solve its existential problems. Only the knowledge that satisfies the essential needs of the individual, the aspirations of the soul, which carry values, and the understanding of the very essence of human life are able to restore that natural (in the sense given) state of harmony, health of soul and body.

Patterns of conquest and colonialism and the reactions to them in Ireland produced a client and intermediary system of domination and division of labour. The colonial laws were perverted by this system, and their effects were further reduced by religious and local closure and 'moral outrage'.A combination of division of labour and distinct cultural closure kept the eighteenth century quiet, rather than any 'moral economy'. Cultural closure rapidly changed into an adversary political language, around 1798, when confronting the power-based tradition of 'normative dissent'. Through the nineteenth century this language adapted pragmatically and instrumentally to dominant institutions and negatively to dominant culture. The process precluded class alignment, eroded state strategy, and forced the hand that might have been played through the tradition of'normative dissent'.

Enacting peasant moral community economies for sustainable livelihoods: A case of women-led cooperatives in rural Mexico

Expanding on the concept of the moral economy, the article investigates implicit justice assumptions connected to family policies in post-industrial European welfare states. Most authors argue that family policies support new understandings of social justice, such as the adult worker norm (Saraceno, 2015), equality of opportunity, and gender equality (Hemerijck, 2018; Palier & Morel, 2012). Critically engaging with this debate, the paper shows how the institutional support of new justice assumptions varies across countries: Increasing women’s employment participation and men’s care involvement is either treated as an issue of private negotiations among family members (UK and Germany) or as an individual right (Sweden) and family-based right (Spain). Comparing the institutional construction of family policies, this paper finds the interpretation of new justice assumptions to be shaped by a welfare state’s existing moral economy. Given that the institutional understanding of justice significantly impacts who benefits from family policies, this paper offers a substantial contribution toward comprehending the cultural aspect of social inequality in post-industrial welfare states.

This essay situates the significance of “spiritual capital” within Puerto Rican brujería (witch-healing) in relation to re-enchantment theories of modernity. It argues that the merging of spiritual and economic values has engendered a form of “spiritualized materialism” that has turned sheer economic prosperity into spiritually wrought rewards. Within this moral economy, matter does not simply function as a conduit for the sacred; it actually constitutes the very idea of the sacred. In comparison to recent work on corporate attempts to fuse religious ethics with business, this essay is noteworthy in that it unravels the logic and effect of such fusions at the vernacular religious level.

This paper presents a fresh approach to empirical moral economy through a case study of ‘financing water for all’ in global water governance. The period 2007–2011 can be understood as a process of purposive, collective re-making that occurred as the professional sphere’s various actors deployed, resisted and realigned distinct constellations of ‘moral common sense’ around the socio-politically fraught issue of paying for water. The research found that global water governance actors demonstrated significant agency to transform the moral economy by disabling and enabling particular forms of moral common sense with specific socio-political outcomes in mind. Namely, to normalize paying for water by shifting the degree of acceptability of contentious financial instruments, economic mechanisms and governance strategies: water pricing and tariffs, cost recovery, and private sector participation. The ascendance of new forms of moral common sense around the social object of paying for water enabled a shift away from impasse in the politics of ‘financing water for all’, particularly in regards to the association between free (or cheap) water, and moral and human rights to water. Indeed, the new constellation of moral common senses can be understood as having ‘made sense’ of paying for water as a means of realizing rights to water, for self and others. This in turn appeared to enable the re-legitimization of the private sector as a global water governance actor.

This article gives voice to a front-line manager in food retailing, discussing her experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak which, overnight, became an ‘essential service’, leaving employees exposed to the virus. The article utilizes the ‘moral economy’ framework to understand how organizational policies, which were developed by senior management and implemented by front-line managers, denied human flourishing and well-being during a period of socio-economic crisis. The article captures the complexity of morality in organizations across managerial levels. Questioning the morality of managerial decisions during the pandemic and emphasizing how these are driven by the intense competition in the market, it reveals that front-line managers are caught between conflicting moral values and expectations. This study contributes to the ‘moral economy’ framework suggesting that the structural constraints of front-line managerial authority have challenged their moral values and narrowed the space for safe and meaningful work and well-being for front-line managers and employees.

The English economy underwent profound changes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, yet the worldly affairs of ordinary people continued to be shaped as much by traditional ideals and moral codes as by material conditions. This book explores the economic implications of many of the era's key concepts, including Christian stewardship, divine providence, patriarchal power, paternal duty, local community, and collective identity. Brodie Waddell draws on a wide range of contemporary sources - from ballads and pamphlets to pauper petitions and guild regulations - to show that such ideas pervaded every aspect of social and economic relations during this crucial period. Previous discussions of English economic life have tended to ignore or dismiss the influence of cultural factors. By contrast, Waddell argues that popular beliefs about divine will, social duty and communal bonds remained the frame through which most people viewed vital 'earthly' concerns such as food marketing, labour relations, trade policy, poor relief, and many others. This innovative study, demonstrating both the vibrancy and the diversity of the 'moral economies' of the later Stuart period, represents a significant contribution to our understanding of early modern society. It will be essential reading for all early modern British economic and cultural historians. Brodie Waddell is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has published on preaching, local government, the landscape and other aspects of early modern society.

‘Moral economy’ is a form of inquiry that examines how ordinary economic practices and relationships embody or affect moral dispositions, evaluations, rules, values, customs and norms. Although ethical concerns, responsibilities and encounters pervade our daily life, often political economists reduce them to personal tastes, fixed preferences, vested interests, social conventions or political ideologies, as if everyday practices were an unreflexive process (Sayer, 2000). The following three papers on moral economy challenge orthodox economics and are critical of disciplinary boundaries. We discuss what moral questions arise from the expansion and the structure of the commercial economy, and what counts as human well-being and development. The three papers on development economics and moral economy were presented at a conference on Perspectives on Moral Economy organised by Andrew Sayer at Lancaster University in 2005. The conference explored moral economy from different disciplinary and transdisciplinary points of view. Normativity is implicit in social sciences but requires better understanding and theorising, and we attempt this by undertaking a broad analytical and empirical inquiry into social practices and relationships in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to address a fundamental flaw in prominent approaches to managing businesses for sustainability. Current management strategies fail to recognize the fundamental differences between economic, social, and moral or ethical values. Economic values are instrumental, individual, and impersonal. Social values are reciprocal, communal, and personal. Moral values are altruistic, spiritual, and universal. These are not arbitrary definitions but expressions of basic differences among the three types of value. These differences reveal the fundamental flaws in attempts to assign economic value or objectively quantify the social and ecological costs and benefits of economic enterprises. The transactional, social, and moral economies are defined in ways that avoid compromising the differences in values. In addition, a natural hierarchy exists among nature, society, and economy that requires a corresponding hierarchy of moral, social, and economic values in managing sustainable organizations. The strategies, motives, and metrics that have dominated sustainable business management for the past several decades, and the related research and educational programs that support them, fail to reflect differences among economic, social, and moral values that are critical to sustainability.

In Sweden de-familialization is since several decades an established policy in the sense that the state has acquired a significant responsibility for the welfare of individuals, independent of the family he/she belongs to. In debates concerning the relations between support from the welfare state and the family one recurring statement is that in taking over the family responsibility, the state has contributed to the weakening of support between family generations in Swedish families. Results from a survey covering 2666 randomly chosen individuals from 18 years regarding intergenerational support partly supports this assumption. What then about practical support? To which extent is there a flow of practical support between kin and which are the determinants behind such support? The focus of the article will be on giving and reception of practical support to and by members of the family belonging to different generations. The questions asked are the role of needs, emotional closeness and family of origin for giving and receiving practical support. Financial support will also be discussed based on results from the same study. Indicators of closeness will be used in the analysis as well as experiences of disruption in families. Further, which motives are regarded as legitimate for giving and receiving support between kin members of different family types. We draw on theory of moral economy, reciprocity and gift giving in the analysis. Following the arguments within the framework of ‘moral economy’ we distinguish different motives behind material and practical support exchanged between family members. Transfers of material and practical support can be linked to needs of such support. It can also be linked to a normative obligation - a family member feels obliged to help. Further it can be linked to desires to keep the family together, which basically can be regarded as an aspect of obligation. Finally it can be linked to motives to sustain personal relationships through strengthening emotional ties.

This article accounts for the tacit politics of the 2013 Stockholm riots. Based on interviews with local residents and a study of the parliamentary debate, it is suggested that the post-war Swedish welfare state generated commonly shared conceptions, which ascribed a temporary legitimacy to the riots within the community by conceptualizing poor living conditions and police racism as government infractions. The modern moral economy was endorsed by the political establishment, with a cynical twist. For future studies of similar riots, it is argued that, although the classical notion of moral economy successfully directs attention to the normative conceptions that propel riots, the notion must be extended with a racialized dimension, the concept of citizenship, and new incarnations of government infraction.

<i>Bruce Robbins,</i> Upward Mobility and the Common Good: Toward a Literary History of the Welfare State<i>Upward Mobility and the Common Good: Toward a Literary History of the Welfare State</i>. Bruce Robbins . Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xviii+304.

This special issue explores the deep entanglements between medicine, law, politics, morality and economy in the contemporary world order and asks how these entwinements shape illness experiences and forms of treatment and care in the varying locations of Egypt, Tanzania, Brazil and India. By introducing the concept of ‘transfiguration’, we highlight the highly ambiguous, ever-evolving and increasingly transnational character of these processes in the vastly contested and power-ridden fields of medicine and wellbeing. We also argue that a moral economy approach can figure as a lens to disentangle and disaggregate these different fields’ values and practices analytically and to account for the need to reflect systematically on people’s struggles for a ‘good life’ in the context of profit-driven and often highly exclusionary economies and their impacts on health care systems. Against this background, the contributions to this special issue ask, through a shared theoretical concern, how medicine, illness experience and medical knowledge production coalesce under the condition of ‘excessive’ economies in relation to subjectivities, materialities and values. In conclusion, we ask which ethical and political demands arise for anthropologists as novel, strongly politicised and morally loaded fields of research open up; and how we can respond to the challenges of doing research in the capital-intensive fields of medicine and health and act accordingly in our investigations and writings.