Moral values and market attitudes

Abstract

Wayne Baker and D ebates about morals and markets focus on the extent to which morals should---or should not--influence markets. Some argue that markets are more efficient and produce just outcomes if they operate freely from moral values; others argue that social justice requires regulation by morals, even if it impedes efficiency; still others argue that morals and markets reciprocally influence one another and that a market separate from morals exists only in theory. The assumption that morals and markets influence each other is consistent with prevailing thought in economic sociology and has been a topic of debate and interest ever since Max Weber wrote the classic, The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism. Starting with this assumption, we provide empirical evidence from the 2003 Detroit Area Study about the relationship between contemporary American moral values and attitudes about the market. We find that two dimensions of values (traditional versus secular-rational values and survival versus self-expression values), as well as moral visions (absolutism/relativism), are significantly related to market attitudes in several domains: work, locus of responsibility, opportunity structures, immigrants, income differences in the U.S., and income differences between nations. (We use "moral values" as shorthand for referring to both dimensions and moral visions.) Moreover, Protestants tend to harbor pro-market attitudes, indicating the lasting legacy of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. These findings suggest that the market is embedded in a moral system, just as it is embedded in networks of social relations.