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1 results

  • 29 - Modern Capitalism and Ethical Plurality

  • from Part V - Institutional Life
  • Edited by James Laidlaw, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Ethics
    Published online:
    11 May 2023
    Print publication:
    25 May 2023, pp 731-759

  • Summary

    Since its appearance on the Western landscape three centuries ago, modern capitalism has given rise to a mythology that, unlike previous socio-economic orders, is so powerful that it can function without an ethical embedding – or simply create one in its own image. This essay argues that this end-of-ethics talk is premature, and only obscures the fact that capitalism is plural in its political and ethical forms, and equally varied in its social organizations and relation to the state. Rather than capitalism everywhere creating a homogeneous ethical landscape by bulldozing intermediary institutions and extra-market value spheres, capitalist societies have given rise to an agonistic plurality of political and moral embeddings and contentions. The essay explores this diversity through a comparison of modern capitalisms in Western, East Asian, and Islamic world areas.