This book adds a crucial focus on morality to the growing literature on the history of capitalism by exploring social and cultural perspectives on the economic order that has dominated the modern world. Taking the study beyond narrow economic confines, it traces the entanglement between moral sentiments and capitalism, examining both moral critiques and moral justifications. Company bankruptcies, systems of taxation, wealth, and the running of stock exchanges were attacked on moral grounds, while ideas of economic justice and the humanization of capitalism loomed large over moral critiques. Many movements, from antislavery to labour campaigns, were inspired by aspirations to improve capitalism and halt the moral decay that was felt to have affected large sections of society. This book questions how moral sentiments are defined and have changed over time, and how these relate to both capitalism and anti-capitalism. Covering a range of different social movements and ethical issues, the 13 chapters present a moral history of capitalism, understood not simply as an economic system but as an order that encompasses all areas of modern life.
Author(s): Stefan Berger, Alexandra Przyrembel (Editors)
Series: Palgrave Studies In The History Of Social Movements
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 343
Tags: Social Movements, Capitalism, Anti-Capitalism
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxv
Introduction: Moralizing Capitalism: Agents, Discourses and Practices of Capitalism and Anti-capitalism in the Modern Age (Stefan Berger, Alexandra Przyrembel)....Pages 1-26
Front Matter ....Pages 27-27
Teaching Capitalism: The Popularization of Economic Knowledge in Britain and Germany (1800–1850) (Sandra Maß)....Pages 29-57
Moralizing Wealth: German Debates About Capitalism and Jews in the Early Twentieth Century (Alexandra Przyrembel)....Pages 59-77
The Moral Foundation of Modern Capitalism: Towards a Historical Reconsideration of Max Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic’ (Thomas Sokoll)....Pages 79-108
Front Matter ....Pages 109-109
‘We Only Want to Pay What Is Fair’: Capital, Morals, and Taxes in Canada 1867–1917 (Elsbeth Heaman)....Pages 111-133
Humanizing Capitalism: The Educational Mission of the Ford Foundation in West Germany and the United States (1945–1960) (Wim de Jong)....Pages 135-158
‘Corporate Citizens’ at the United Nations: The 1973 GEP Hearings and the New Spirit of Multinational Business (Christian Olaf Christiansen)....Pages 159-183
Front Matter ....Pages 185-185
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Commercial Honour at the New York Stock Exchange During the Progressive Era (Boris Gehlen)....Pages 187-204
Bankruptcy and Morality in a Capitalist Market Economy: The Case of Mid-Nineteenth-Century France (Jürgen Finger)....Pages 205-229
Front Matter ....Pages 231-231
US Catholicism and Economic Justice: 1919–1929 (Giulia D’Alessio)....Pages 233-250
The Discourse Against ‘Shameful Profiteering’ in Greece 1914–1925: Notions of Exploitation, Anticapitalist Morality and the Concept of Moral Economy (Nikos Potamianos)....Pages 251-266
Dilemmas of Moral Markets: Conflicting Narratives in the West German Fair Trade Movement (Benjamin Möckel)....Pages 267-292
Economic Boom, Workers’ Literature, and Morality in the West Germany of the 1960s and Early 1970s (Sibylle Marti)....Pages 293-314
Back Matter ....Pages 315-329
