Overview

s there a moral economy of capitalism? The term moral economy was coined in pre-capitalist times and does not refer to economy as we know it today. It was only in the nineteenth century that economy came to mean the production and circulation of goods and services. At the same time, the term started to be used in an explicitly critical tone: references to moral economy were normally critical of modern forms of economy, which were purportedly lacking in morals. In our times, too, the morality of capitalism is often the topic of debate and controversy. Moral Economies engages in these debates. Using historical case studies from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries the book discusses the degree to which economic actions and decisions were permeated with moral, good-vs-bad classifications. Moreover it shows how strongly antiquitys concept of embedded economy is still powerful in modernity. The model for this was often the private household, in which moral, social, and economic behavior patterns were intertwined. The do-it-yourself movement of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries was still oriented towards this model, thereby criticizing capitalism on moral grounds.

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9783525364260

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Ute Frevert (* 1954) is a scientific member of the Max Planck Society and director of the Berlin Max Planck Institute for Educational Research, where she heads the research area ""History of Feelings"" and as spokeswoman for the International Max Planck Research School for Moral Economies of Modern Societies. The historian taught at Yale University from 2003 to 2007. Previously she held chairs for modern history at the Universities of Bielefeld and Constance and at the Free University of Berlin, which she has been a honorary professor since 2008. In addition to her work on numerous scientific advisory boards and boards of trustees, Ute Frevert is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the British Academy. The DFG awarded her the renowned Leibniz Prize in 1998.

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