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Moral Views of Market Society ANRV316-SO33-14 ARI 31 May 2007 12:29 Moral Views of Market Society Marion Fourcade1 and Kieran Healy2 1Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-1980; email: [email protected] 2Department of Sociology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007. 33:285–311 Key Words First published online as a Review in Advance on markets, capitalism, moral order, culture, performativity, April 5, 2007 governmentality The Annual Review of Sociology is online at http://soc.annualreviews.org Abstract This article’s doi: Upon what kind of moral order does capitalism rest? Conversely, by University of California - Berkeley on 08/30/07. For personal use only. 10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131642 does the market give rise to a distinctive set of beliefs, habits, and Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007.33:285-311. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org Copyright c 2007 by Annual Reviews. social bonds? These questions are certainly as old as social science All rights reserved itself. In this review, we evaluate how today’s scholarship approaches 0360-0572/07/0811-0285$20.00 the relationship between markets and the moral order. We begin with Hirschman’s characterization of the three rival views of the market as civilizing, destructive, or feeble in its effects on society. We review recent work at the intersection of sociology, economics, and political economy and show that these views persist both as theories of market society and moral arguments about it. We then argue that a fourth view, which we call moralized markets, has become increasingly prominent in economic sociology. This line of research sees markets as cultural phenomena and moral projects in their own right, and seeks to study the mechanisms and techniques by which such projects are realized in practice. 285 ANRV316-SO33-14 ARI 31 May 2007 12:29 INTRODUCTION relations, corrupt political life, and corrode character. We call this view the commodi- In 1982, a soft-spoken economist with a self- fied nightmare. Finally, economic sociologists diagnosed propensity for subversion (and self- have leaned toward Hirschman’s third cate- subversion) published a short article on a big gory: markets as relatively feeble compared to topic (Hirschman 1982): How have intellec- culture and society. The dominant paradigm tual elites understood and judged market so- of embeddedness implies that culture and in- ciety throughout history? Somewhat contrary stitutions mediate, and often trump, the moral to his expectations, Hirschman (1977) found implications (good or bad) of capitalist mar- that the market was initially seen as a civilizing kets. In this view, markets do not have a moral force. For most of the eighteenth century, the nature outside the particular social and cog- doux commerce thesis held that market relations nitive arrangements from which they emerge made people more cordial and less inclined to and that sustain them. fight one another. By the late nineteenth cen- Despite the value of Hirschman’s frame- tury, however, this harmonious vision faced a work, we also seek to go beyond it. In his challenge. Marx, among others, argued that scheme, the causal relationship between the capitalist society tends to undermine its own market and the moral order is straightforward. moral foundations, to the point at which Markets can exert a huge direct effect for good it will ultimately self-destruct. In response or do tremendous damage. Alternatively, the to this gloomy prediction, the defenders of arrow points the other way, and fragile mar- the market revised the doux commerce thesis. kets are overwhelmed by the moral order (or, The market was still an essentially good more rarely, nurtured by it). We argue that a force but a too feeble one. According to this body of important work, most of it quite re- “feudal shackles” thesis, the persistence of cent, rejects this clean division between the cultural and institutional legacies from the moral order and the market. Instead, research past hampered the market’s beneficial effects. on the classification of exchange relations, the Conversely, the absence of such a heritage performativity of economics, and the regula- in the U.S. case was seen as a blessing and tion of countries and corporations in the inter- a critical element in explaining the country’s national economy is united by a view of mar- moral character and economic success. kets as intensely moralized, and moralizing, Markets, Hirschman suggested, have thus entities. We suggest that this new emphasis been cast as civilizing, destructive, or feeble in reflects not simply a shift in scholarly fashion, their effects on society. In the 25 years since but also trends in the public justification of by University of California - Berkeley on 08/30/07. For personal use only. the publication of his article, there has been the contemporary economic order itself. an explosion of research on markets in sociol- Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007.33:285-311. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org ogy. In this article, we begin with Hirschman’s conceptual scheme and show how a good deal of this recent work fits within its categories. CIVILIZING MARKETS: First, economists still endorse the doux com- THE LIBERAL DREAM merce thesis and generally emphasize the pos- Economists need no convincing that compet- itive effect of market institutions on civil soci- itive markets constitute the best possible ar- ety, politics, and culture. We call the modern rangement for the satisfaction of individual version of this view the liberal dream. Second, needs and the efficient allocation of resources. public intellectuals and critics from various Both these arguments were made long ago by disciplines continue to critique the market. Adam Smith and Leon Walras, respectively, The “autodestruction” thesis that Hirschman and have generally withstood the test of time identified, however, has evolved into more within the discipline. At both micro and macro specific claims that markets undermine social levels, so it seems, economic theory elevates 286 Fourcade · Healy ANRV316-SO33-14 ARI 31 May 2007 12:29 egoism to paradigmatic status. “It is not from “trustees, not of civilization, but of the possi- the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, bility of civilization.” or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their human- A Virtue Ethics of the Market ity but to their self-love,” wrote Smith (1994, The reason morality seems a priori irrele- p. 15) in one of the most cited passages of the vant to economics is that, as Smith discov- Wealth of Nations. Today, the neoclassical ap- ered, a system may be virtuous and harmo- proach that formalized modern economic the- nious as a whole no matter how selfish its con- ory generally posits that individuals maximize stituent parts are. But here is the twist: Each their utility in all social relations. Principal- individual’s hunger for profit will be kept in agent theory, for instance, is predicated on check by a similar drive among other individ- the notion that actors will retain informa- uals. Rather than producing ruthless greed, tion and cheat organizational demands. Pub- self-interest will tend to make people polite, lic choice theory hypothesizes that corrup- serviceable, and honest. Thus, Smith (1978, tion, rather than benevolence in some degree, p. 538; cited in Stigler 1981, pp. 172–73) also is the natural condition of the government. wrote that “whenever commerce is introduced And an infamous leaked World Bank memo into any country, probity and punctuality al- about the comparative advantage of develop- ways accompany it .... Of all the nations of ing economies in attracting dirty industries Europe, the Dutch, the most commercial, are has become a canonical example of the po- the most faithful to their word.” tential gap between moral questions of justice Markets, then, not only produce eco- and cold-blooded considerations of allocative nomic harmony (the satisfaction of individ- efficiency (Economist 1992). uals’ desires and needs), they also create If economists exclusively made narrow social harmony. McCloskey (2006) is today claims about the allocation of resources, an ar- perhaps the most prominent defender of ticle about markets and morals would feature the view that markets encourage not only them only as a negative case. Yet the relation- public but also personal virtue. Like other ship of economic theory to morality is more virtue ethicists, she seeks to identify both the complex than this. First, economic theory is virtues that comprise good moral character built on assumptions whose implicit moral and the individual habits and social institu- content can be drawn out in detail (Hausman tions that cultivate such virtues in people. & McPherson 2006). Second, and more im- In broad outline, we may contrast this ap- by University of California - Berkeley on 08/30/07. For personal use only. portantly for our purposes, there is a long tra- proach with the Kantian and consequential- Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2007.33:285-311. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org dition within economic discourse of explicit ist traditions, which offer competing theories praise for the moral benefits of market society. for judging the morality of actions (whether The precise benefits vary. The doux commerce through the application of deontological prin- tradition is carried forward by arguments that ciples of moral duty or a utilitarian calcu- the market nourishes personal virtues of hon- lation of the good and bad consequences est behavior, civility, and cooperation. Oth- of one’s choices). For McCloskey, markets ers have seen markets as a necessary condi- nurture a long list of “bourgeois virtues,” tion for freedom in other aspects of life, most including integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, prominently in politics and in the cultural enterprise, respect, modesty, and respon- realm.
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