Political and Moral Economy: Not Such Strange Bedfellows

Abstract

Moral economy considerations around distributive or economic justice in later life also are implied in the recent work of Tindale and Neysmith. The limitations and inequities underlying moral economy notions in this and areas indeed represent an important area for further research. In the Marxist tradition of political economy, moral questions in general have been treated with ambivalence, if repression. The evolution of pension systems in North America and Western Europe well illustrates the fit between moral and political economy approaches, and the ways in which their joint application may enrich our understanding of this and other phenomena within the broad field of aging. A key tenet of moral economy, for example, is that the shared moral assumptions underlying norms of reciprocity serve and reflect only the values of the subordinate, but also of the dominant groups. The importance of viewing care of the elderly and gender justice within a political economy perspective has of course been well demonstrated.