‘Moralizing Capitalism’? Concept and Idea
The book ‘Moralizing Capitalism’ ties in with the current research interest in the history of capitalism and chooses a very specific perspective: it is interested in the relationship between morality and capitalism. But what actually are moral sentiments, and how did they change over time? What is to be understood by ‘capitalist morality’ and what role do moral beliefs play for the implementation and consolidation of capitalism? To what extent did social movements opposed to capitalism establish an independent ‘moral economy’? And what moral arguments did entrepreneurs use to legitimize ‘morally’ their decisions, some of which might have threatened social peace?
While the history of capitalism is flourishing,1 the interconnections between ‘morality’ and capitalism have hardly been addressed so far. In 1971 E. P. Thompson used the concept of ‘moral economy’ to understand the moral values of social groups that revolted against industrialization. In his essay ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, he rejected the assumption of economic historians that in the eighteenth-century uprisings of hunger were caused by deprivation. Instead, Thompson claimed that such revolts were based on ‘consistent traditional views of social norms and obligations, of the proper economic functions of several parties within the community, which, taken together, can be said to constitute the moral economy of the poor’.2 As the author notes ironically in a later essay, in which he responds to his critics, the concept moral economy ‘has long forgotten its paternity’.3 What Thompson alludes to is that the concept of the ‘moral economy’ wandered from the eighteenth century to modern history to explain various historical phenomena. Since the publication of Thompson’s essay historians with different research interests have taken up his concept. William G. Reddy for example understands moral economy as ‘a set of values and moral standards that were violated by technical and commercial change’.4 Recently, anthropologists such as Didier Fassin have applied the concept of ‘morality’ and ‘moral sentiments’ to different fields that represent challenges (i.e. migration politics, humanitarian aid, the making of punishment) for contemporary society. Fassin provides a very broad definition of how morality shapes the social order understanding moral economy as the production of moral feelings, emotions and values, norms and obligations by also considering their impact on social relations.5
The concept of morality itself, as well as moral values (e.g. justice, fairness, honour), has changed over time. For example, the idea that morality is used as a concept to explain social order is closely intertwined with the history of knowledge, particularly with the writings of Émile Durkheim.6 Moral movements have also shaped the understanding of morality and moral values. These organizations covered a broad social spectrum. They operated at both the local and transnational levels.7 In their Communist Manifesto (1848) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels polemized against those activities fostered by ‘economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organizers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind’.8 Many of these associations fought a cultural war to prevent a decline in values. Others, such as the anti-slavery movement which is central to the history of capitalism in the nineteenth century, committed themselves to the universalization of human rights.9 The exact history of these movements and smaller associations is not of interest here.10 However, the above mentioned social movements introduced moral categories into the public debate and maintained the discussion on moral values in various discursive contexts. Following this observation, we will explore further in this volume how the critique of capitalism was linked with ‘moral’ arguments and taken up by ‘moral’ social movements.
Already in 2001, the sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello pointed out that the critique of capitalism is a central, possibly constitutive element of capitalism. In their book Le nouvel esprit de capitalisme (2001) they argue that anti-capitalist movements actually legitimize the economic order they seek to undermine.11 The critique of capitalism has indeed accompanied the implementation of capitalism since the nineteenth century. In his recent essays, Jürgen Kocka underlined the importance of critique as cultural practices in various works since the French socialist Louis Blanc (1811–1882) coined the term ‘capitalism’ in 1850.12
In this book, we want to take up these ideas. We argue that the critique of capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth century is structured by a set of moral values which is constantly (re)-negotiated by social movements, entrepreneurs and above all the state. The interpretation of capitalism can be seen as ‘Promothean event for it at once marked the acme of humanity’s command over nature as well as the deluge which then ensued’.13 If this is correct, then a morally legitimized or framed critique of capitalism moves between two poles: on the one hand, criticism of capitalism is ignited by the success of capitalism, even though it does not ‘harm’ capitalism as an economic system. On the other hand, it is ignited by experiences of crisis. It is no coincidence that capitalism and its history has been examined again with new ferocity since the global financial and economic crisis of 2007.
A New History of Capitalism?
Histories of capitalism have been proliferating ever since the financial crisis starting in 2007. It prompted a renewed critical interest in an economic system that had won the Cold War around 1990, when its ‘really existing’ alternative, state socialism, collapsed in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. After the end of the Cold War, the triumphalism of the capitalist West is best represented by Francis Fukuyama’s best-selling The End of History and the Last Man, first published in 1992.14 In the 1990s, the rivalries of two economic systems seemed settled—with little interest in histories of capitalism, and, at best, occasional questions about how to live with capitalism.15 When this changed, the new histories of capitalism had to relate themselves to a century and a half of research on capitalism.16
Some of the new interest was accompanied by new scenarios of decline, where the crisis was seen as the beginning of the end of capitalism.17 Such predictive histories followed a long tradition of critiques of capitalism. These critiques have historically followed two paths: on the one hand, we have a fundamental critique aimed at transforming capitalism. These critics tended to stress the exploitative and alienating features of capitalist systems. On the other hand, reformist critiques aimed at making capitalism better and improving it.18 Capitalism transformed itself many times under the impact of diverse forms of critique and its ability to change its shape and content as a response to criticism belongs to its most remarkable characteristics. This changeability led to manifold ambiguities and multiplicities of capitalisms which make the phenomenon notoriously difficult to define.19 Undoubtedly private property has been crucial, as have been markets and competition. Decentralized decision-making over economic processes, the accumulation of capital and the importance of investments have also been vital ingredients of capitalism. But the fact that capitalism is best understood as a process that is changing over time, partly due to critiques of capitalism, makes it difficult to come up with ‘one size fits all’ definitions.
Another characteristic of the renewed interest in the histories of capitalism is that capitalism is no longer of interest exclusively to economic historians. Political historians, social historians, cultural historians and historians of knowledge and science have all contributed in important ways to debates on the history of capitalism, as capitalism is seen to have impacted not just on the economic, but also the social, cultural and political spheres.20 Consumption histories and the histories of the ‘fiscal-military state’ belong centrally to the history of capitalism.21 Capitalism has arguably been the most important structure giving order to modern societies, not just in the realm of the economy, but also in its cultural, social and political realms. Actors of capitalism, discourses on capitalism and knowledge production in and through capitalism all need to be studied to gain a better understanding of how capitalism as an ‘essentially ...