The moral economy of austerity: analysing UK welfare reform

This paper notes the contemporary emergence of ‘morality’ in both sociological argument and political rhetoric, and analyses its significance in relation to ongoing UK welfare reforms. It revisits the idea of ‘moral economy’ and identifies two strands in its contemporary application; that all economies depend on an internal moral schema, and that some external moral evaluation is desirable. UK welfare reform is analysed as an example of the former, with reference to three distinct orientations advanced in the work of Freeden ( 1996 ), Laclau ( 2014 ), and Lockwood ( 1996 ). In this light, the paper then considers challenges to the reform agenda, drawn from third sector and other public sources. It outlines the forms of argument present in these challenges, based respectively on rationality, legality, and morality, which together provide a basis for evaluation of the welfare reforms and for an alternative ‘moral economy’.     

On the moral economy of country life

The role that elite rural women play in the fields of community service and social networking ensures the creation and reproduction of cultural and symbolic capital. Their work, which contributes a necessary ‘service’ for the functioning of village life, also serves to enact women's positions in these fields. Through these strategies and distributions of capital one can see that the social world is mirrored in a homologous symbolic system which is organised according to a specific logic of differences specific to New Zealand rural communities. This paper focuses on how this moral economy of service structures a North Island hill country farming community.     

Neoconservatism,bohemia and the moral economy of neoliberalism

This paper is concerned with the moral economy of neoliberalism. The goal is to show the development of this moral economy through the discourse of neoconservatism. The research pays particular attention to the incorporation of aspects of bohemia in the construction of this moral economy. The paper charts the development of the neoconservative moral critique of political modernity in the second half of the twentieth century by drawing on the leading neoconservative figures, Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol. The first part of this research makes clear the homology between the neoconservative critique of bohemia and excessive capitalism, where both are accused of nihilism as part of the moral abyss of liberal modernity. The second part of this research shows how, through the work of George Gilder, neoconservatives re-imagined a moral economy for capitalism that overcame the apparent nihilism whilst retaining the unrestrained nature of accumulation. Through a celebration of the heroic entrepreneur, neoliberalism’s moral economy is based upon a celebration of risk, an embrace of chance and an overturning of bourgeois morality. Neoliberalism incorporates the bohemian critique of bourgeois capitalism into a critique of the social democratic welfare state which, by prioritising safety over pleasure and excess, is deemed to be both incapable of offering spiritual satisfaction as well as being ill suited to a post-Fordist economy. The flexible nature of bohemia that rebelled against organised strictures of bourgeois morality and Fordist organisation is welcomed by the neoliberal turn. The spiritual satisfaction of life on the edge offered to the neoliberal subject acts as a form seduction and mirrors the creative freedom offered through bohemia. Neoliberalism’s gift, however, comes at a price, the edgy existence is coupled with removal of social safety nets and increasing insecurity and precariatisation.     

The moral economy of person production: the class relations of self-performance on 'reality' television

Drawing on the textual analysis of an ESRC research project 'Making Class and the Self through Mediated Ethical Scenarios' , this article illustrates how 'reality' television offers a visible barometer of a person's moral value. The research included an examination of the shift to self-legitimation, the increased importance of reflexivity and the decline of class proposed by the individualisation thesis. ¹ We focused on self-transformation 'reality' television programmes as public examples of the dramatisation of individualisation. The over-recruitment of different types of working-class participants to these shows and the positioning of many in need of transformation, enabled an exploration of how certain people and cultures are positioned, evaluated and interpreted as inadequate, deficient and requiring improvement. We found that the individualisation promoted through the programmes was always reliant upon access to and operationalisation of specific social, cultural, economic and symbolic capital.     

Feminized cultural capital at work in the moral economy: Home credit and working-class women

One of the defining features of the home credit sector is the role played by its agents—workers who act as intermediaries between lending companies and borrowers to facilitate lending and collect repayments. There is a prevailing and pervasive narrative in the sector that women make superior agents, largely based on the belief that female agents can manage relationships with borrowers more successfully than their male counterparts. This article analyzes data from 349,078 home credit accounts (loans), as well as 71 interviews with home credit agents and lending company managers, to evaluate both the myths and realities of women's roles in home credit. The data is also used to explore the opportunities for—and potential constraints on—women's career progression in home credit work, based on an understanding of the moral economy in which they operate. By exploring the moral economy of low-income communities, the article highlights the role of working-class women's cultural capital within the labor market. Despite women forming the majority of the agent workforce in home credit, women's capital is undervalued in comparison with their male counterparts' capital. The analysis within this article allows a greater understanding of the highly classed and gendered nature of the moral economy of low-income communities and the exchange value of women's capital within the labor market.     

The moral of the gift

The author analyses the gift as a moral phenomenon. Based on a research on gift-giving in family networks, the article shows that one cannot apply to the gift the moral rules normally based on duty. A “true” gift must be free not only from economic obligation but also from moral duty, and in some way from any obligation. It is as if something more than what the rules prescribe were essential to the gift, as defined by social agents. This is why one can define the ideal-type of gift as a positive debt system voluntarily maintained by its partners.     

Morality as the enemy of equality: Law,economy, and moral responsibility in the early Mormon church

The Law of Consecration and Stewardship, revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1831, sought to establish obligations of mutual moral responsibility that would simultaneously serve to promote economic equality among members of the early Mormon church. The failure of the law, leading to its demise in 1834, is considered with reference to some current conceptions of the bases of human moral responsibility and their implications regarding moral stratification. This analysis suggests that by seeking to create a system of moral responsibility in the interests of economic equality, the law would necessarily have impaired the expression of a disposition to act morally on the part of individual Mormons. This inhibition of the capacity for personal moral action as much, if not more than, an uncharitable human nature may have undermined the law.     

The moral bases of social work

Social work's conventional “value-talk” presents a professionally neutral value-system for making moral judgements, but paradoxically neglects the professional social role of making moral judgements on behalf of society. Conventional statements of social work's moral values neglect economic, political, and aesthetic value judgements and issues of logic, rhetoric, and epistemology, which should also be included in value debate. Social work's value codes are not 'basic', because they are not usable in practice, are not distinctive, comprehensive, or universal. Historical and sociological evidence suggests that social workers make moral judgements of their clients on behalf of society. These judgements should be earned out within a more comprehensive and better articulated value system, which is applied in the detail of everyday practice.     

The mixed economy, the neoliberal challenge, and the negotiated economy

In recent years the ideal of the mixed economy has been challenged by neoliberal theories. This article reviews the debate. A better definition of the concept is presented and used to clarify what is at stake in the debate.     

The world economy and contemporary migration

While not enough is known about international proletarian diasporas to be able to say much about their present or future behaviors, it is clear that they are closely tied to the key problems of the world today: establishing greater equality between and within societies and doing so under conditions of cultural pluralism that is no longer based on exploitation and domination, but on grounds which lead to a mutual enrichment of social life in both sending and receiving countries. The agenda for future research is to examine these issues in detail, cross-nationally and comparatively. For example, we must study the strategies involved in such migration variations as "commuting," "trial" migration, and "visiting," and what implications these apparently widespread practices have for the receiving societies, as well as the moral obligations of these societies, which have developed historically on the basis of labor provided by immigration and continue to depend for capital accumulation and economic growth on the availability of imported laboring hands. Nevertheless, if economic recovery in the advanced nations should continue to lag, if there are new recessions, or if dramatic improvements in employment opportunities in developing countries fail to materialize, migration across international boundaries may become even more volatile. Since the political, economic, and ethical questions which migration poses for both sending and receiving societies have become potentially explosive issues, it is imperative that they be debated and coherent and appropriate guidelines established.     

人的现代化与青少年德育--关于新形势下增强德育针对性和实效性的思考

在新的历史条件下,我们面临着两个重要的现代化任务,一是以经济、政治和文化发展为重点的社会现代化任务;二是以培养高素质国民为重点的人的现代化任务.改革开放以来,我国的经济发展和社会现代化进程明显加快,成绩举世瞩目,让广大人民群众特别是青少年大受其益又深受鼓舞.随着改革的不断深入,体制转轨,社会转型,观念转变,我们碰到了许多新情况和新问题.     

The underground economy and social stratification

Few sociological studies escape without some consideration of variables which involve the ranking of people or positions. The intent of this paper is to point out a serious problem in our measurement of status/mobility/stratification/class, a problem which is increasing in its seriousness with the growth of the underground economy. In this paper, we (1) define the underground economy, (2) survey research on its size and growth in the United States, (3) define the problems which the underground economy poses for sociology using stratification research as an example, and (4) point out the promise for sociology of including the underground economy in our research.     

服务经济的本质与内涵：理论渊源

从以下几类研究中寻找对服务经济的理解和认识：其一,关于服务经济的研究;其二,关于服务业的研究,从服务业在经济体中的地位和作用来理解和诠释服务经济的内涵及特征;其三,关于后工业经济时代经济发展趋势和发展特征的研究。通过对涉及服务经济研究相关文献的总结、归纳和梳理,提出服务经济的判断标准、基本经济结构、内涵与基本特征、增长动力、空间结构及其创新模式。     

Cyberbullying perpetration among Chinese adolescents: The role of interparental conflict,moral disengagement,and moral identity

The current study examined the relationships among interparental conflict, moral disengagement, moral identity, and cyberbullying perpetration among adolescents. Participants were 649 Chinese high school students (aged 11–19 years, 48% girls). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis and SPSS macro PROCESS were conducted to test the proposed the moderated mediation model. Results showed that moral disengagement was positively correlated with adolescents' cyberbullying perpetration behavior. Moral identity was negatively related to cyberbullying perpetration behavior. Moral disengagement and moral identity mediated the effect of interparental conflict on cyberbullying perpetration. Moreover, moral identity moderated the indirect effect of interparental conflict on cyberbullying perpetration behavior through moral disengagement. These findings suggest that interparental conflict could foster cyberbullying perpetration through adolescents' moral disengagement and moral identity. In addition, a strong moral identity can buffer the negative effect of moral disengagement on cyberbullying perpetration.     

世界经济再平衡中的中国经济走向及其政策取向

分析当前中国宏观经济运行走向及其政策取向,必须在世界经济再平衡的特殊分析框架下考察其内生性因素所起的作用。世界经济再平衡的核心是劳动力与其他要素配置的结构性矛盾。如果要实现世界经济再平衡,必须使这一结构性矛盾得以缓解。缓解这一结构性矛盾的出路,不在于迫使新兴经济体国家货币升值,而在于发达国家的劳动力市场竞争力的改善,从根本上来讲,将取决于一场目前尚无法预期的新一轮世界性技术革命的到来。因此,全球性经济复苏之路注定是漫长而曲折的。在世界经济再平衡过程中,中国经济同样受到外部冲击和内部结构性矛盾的困扰,游走在通胀与通缩的边缘,在迅速复苏的同时面临诸多压力和不确定性。因此,中国经济宏观调控与治理的取向在于预防滞胀风险,处理好短期与中长期、总量与结构的综合关系,其根本出路在于经济的转型。