Economics and Morality

Reviews / Votes

Economic activity involves more than rational, calculating individuals buying and selling with each other, as amply demonstrated by the essays in Economics and Morality. The breadth of this collection is impressive, ranging from exchange in Papua New Guinea, ethical consumption in the UK, and toxic waste in the U.S. to stocks and shares in global markets. In these cases we begin to see the morality of economy, the ways in which values, relationships, and economic actions reflect and shape each other. That ghostly 'rational actor' may pervade popular and even scholarly economic thought, but this collection shows how different is the economic activity that we see around us. -- James G. Carrier, Oxford Brookes University and Indiana University Notions of the economic and the moral have long been intertwined, but recent changes in the world and in social theory have newly problematized the interrelationship. Economics and Morality is a wide-ranging and superbly edited collection that revitalizes an anthropological tradition, making it speak to new concerns. -- Donald L. Donham, University of California, Davis This is an exciting, innovative, and carefully crafted collection of papers that speak to the core issues of social and economic life. The contributions are rich and varied, and engage common issues to a degree you rarely see in an edited volume. This is one of the very best recent books in economic anthropology - fascinating case studies on the very cutting edge of the changing global economy. -- Richard Wilk, distinguished professor emeritus, Indiana University