Towards a civilized market economy: economic citizenship rights and responsibilities in service of a humane society

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511808395.010

8 - Towards a civilized market economy: economic citizenship rights and responsibilities in service of a humane society

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2011

Edited by

Shiban Khan and

Heiko Spitzeck: Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Michael Pirson: Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
Wolfgang Amann: Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Shiban Khan: Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland
Ernst von Kimakowitz: Affiliation:
Universität St Gallen, Switzerland

Book contents

Get access

Summary

A change of perspective: “It's not the economy, stupid – it's society!”

Everybody remembers Bill Clinton's slogan during his successful 1992 presidential campaign, “It's the economy, stupid!” My premise is that today this motto needs slight modernization. An up-to-date version would be: “It's not the economy, stupid – it's society!”

What is my point? We need to learn to make a clear distinction between economy and society and relate them in a sensible way, instead of confusing the two, as is common practice in neoliberal thinking, with its standard recipe for nearly all socio-economic problems: more market and more competition. The economic logic of competitive markets, productivity, and growth cannot be the whole answer to our societal problems, since these problems are simply a part of the success story of economic “liberalization” and “rationalization.” Is it not the inherent purpose of that kind of development to set humans “free” from their workplaces in order to increase labor productivity and economic growth?

One of the core problems today could be that the social organization of our national economies – and of the developing transnational economy – lags behind their steadily rising productivity. What is increasingly needed is an overall reassessment and redesign of the societal relationships between all involved; this could be a prerequisite for an economic development that makes sense with regard to our quality of life.

Type: Chapter
Information: Humanism in Business , pp. 143 - 155

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511808395.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Dagger, R. 1997. Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Dahrendorf, R. 1994. “The Changing Quality of Citizenship,” in Steenbergen, B. (ed.), The Condition of Citizenship. London: Sage, pp. 10–19.Google Scholar

Lutz, M. A. and Lux, K. 1988. Humanistic Economics: The New Challenge. New York: Bootstrap.Google Scholar

Macpherson, C. B. 1962: The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar

Margalit, A. 1996. The Decent Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar

Marshall, T. M. 1963. “Citizenship and Social Class,” in Sociology at the Crossroads and Other Essays. London: Heinemann, pp. 67–127.Google Scholar

Pocock, J. G. A. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Rawls, J. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar

Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Tugendhat, E. 1994. Vorlesungen über Ethik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar

Ulrich, P. 2003. “Ethics and Economics,” in L. Zsolnai (ed.), Ethics in the Economy: Handbook of Business Ethics (second edition). Berne and Oxford: Peter Lang, pp. 9–37.Google Scholar

Ulrich, P. 2008. Integrative Economic Ethics: Foundations of a Civilized Market Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press [first published in German language, 1997, fourth edition 2008].CrossRef Google Scholar

Veen, R. J. 1997. “Real Freedom versus Reciprocity: Competing Views on the Justice of Unconditional Basic Income,” Political Studies XLV: 140–63.Google Scholar

Parijs, P. 1995. Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism?Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Parijs, P. 1997. “Reciprocity and the Justification of an Unconditional Basic Income. Reply to Stuart White,” Political Studies XLV: 327–30.CrossRef Google Scholar

Weber, M. 1930. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, T.London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar

White, S. 2003. The Civic Minimum: On the Rights and Obligations of Economic Citizenship. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Yunus, M. 1999. Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle against World Poverty. New York: Public Affairs.Google Scholar