Moral economies: possibilities for a new framework of economic structure and change

Post-Soviet Post-Socialism

One way to frame the contention and even chaos of post-socialist, post-Soviet reforms is through this dichotomy of market versus moral economiesOne could argue that the Soviet economy was a “moral economy in power.” From superficial impressions, the subordination of economic practices to broader social good -- class justice and welfare provision -- seems to fit the bill. However, that command economy was also oriented to military production and state and Party power. Paternalism of Soviet political economy was a moral economy, but one in which norms of collective provision and justice were intertwined with elite claims to authority. From this vantage point, capitalist elites (especially in conditions of growing inequality) and Soviet elites mirrored one another: using claims about the moral superiority of state socialism (directed provision) or relatively unfettered markets (individual freedom) to buttress structured inequality of power. But this broader issue and comparison are best left for their own separate analysis.. The dynamics of interests and cultural frames is complex enough to fill two books [Hass, 2011; 2012], and so I keep my overview succinct. Market reforms might have been a solution to worsening provision of economic goods and services -- but it also violated expectations that the state would continue to provide myriad public services to defend individual well-being and the common good. And this was no marginal facet of post-Soviet contention, especially in Russia: the response to rapid market reforms and market pain of “shock therapy” has been a seemingly classical Polanyian picture of society biting back, whether in support for antireform forces in the first major post-Soviet elections of 1994 or in the initial support for Vladimir Putin, who made his name and legitimacy not only returning the Russian state to stability and power, but also by taming the oligarchical elite that had siphoned off much of the country's wealth (which was not entirely untrue, either). Privatization was designed to improve economic performance by moving property into private hands, where incentives and stimuli to improve investment and efficiency would be stronger [Hass, 2011, ch. 3, 5]. Evidence from privatization is mixed; not all privatized firms improved, and often became vehicles for rent-seeking. Such evidence came later, after battles had died down and policy was reality. Rather, the real battles were over notions of a normal and just economy, and contention erupted along several lines, with normative rhetoric overtaking instrumental rationality. Reforming elites, for example, saw privatization as a means not only to revive the economy, but especially to break the command economy, which was as or more “immoral” than “inefficient.” Enterprise workers, at the forefront of privatization, saw the reform as a way to realize a true communist goal of worker ownership of the means of production -- until it became clear that the game was rigged to outside owners, who would probably sell off enterprises for scrap or otherwise rent-seek. Soviet-era Red Directors tried to avoid privatization or use it to gain control of enterprises themselves, all the time under the banner of defending the worker collective.

The logics and rhetoric of claims and contention, then, were grounded in these different moral economies: a moral economy of managerial paternalism and ultimate authority; a moral economy of market freedom, similar to that of global neoliberalism, that found its voice among market reformers and elite oligarchs; a moral economy of a socialist-market hybrid among workers, who saw in market reforms the hope of actually realizing socialism (ownership, empowerment, and well-being); and a moral economy of nationalism that reigns supreme today. Note that these are not only repertoires that legitimate political action; they are also conceptions of what a normal, moral, legitimate economy looks like (worker-centered, manager-centered, elite-centered, state-centered). And those moral economies were institutionalized (even if temporarily) in the organization of property empires [Hass, 2011, ch. 5]: production-centered, finance-centered, and state-centered financial-industrial groups [Hass, 2018]. And that contention was not entirely a response to encroaching capitalism (Scott's moral economy), nor solely an attempt to advance individual gains (Popkin's political or market economy). These were conflicts over constructing a normal economy in a broad sense -- the battle for a new, post-socialist civilization. If market economies require moral economies, then one challenge to Russians in the 1990s was creating the norms to legitimate and support particular interests and how to pursue them; one could argue that the current political economy is grounded in a more nationalist set of norms, creating a nation-centered moral economy underpinning a dirigiste political economy.

Conclusion

Market economies require moral economies, not their elimination; the two can be complementary as well as contradictory. A moral economy as a set of norms that orient economic action, beyond commodification and accumulation, can restrain the expansion and operation of market capitalism. It can also support of those practices. Market economies require justifications -- not only moral justifications, but also epistemological foundations. Further, moral economies are part and parcel of power, whether the power to dominate and exploit, or the power to resist and buttress autonomy. And this is seems true not only for market capitalism, but also for Soviet socialism, peasant agriculture, or anything else. Pitting moral and market economies against each other, as theories of human economic behavior and organization, made just as little sense as juxtaposing interests and identities or interests and ideologies. One cannot be reduced to the other. If there is a “winner” in this contest, it is that norms provide not only tools to advance, defend, or obfuscate interests; they are also a template for making sense of our positions in the world, and what our interests are, should be, or could be.

Recent years have shown the importance of bringing norms and moral economies back into the picture. Right-wing, nationalist populism, and less powerful but still present left-wing liberalism, have grown since the Great Recession of 2008 -- and Karl Polanyi [Polanyi, 1944] suggested society can “bite back” if markets are relatively unfettered from norms that legitimate markets and tame them for some general well-being. According to Polanyi, the Great Depression drove non-elites towards the left (socialism) and the right (fascism) because both camps offered not only leaders and organization, but also because they offered moral critiques of market economies that caused pain, and moral foundations for a new type of economy and polity. Increasing inequality under new global capitalism has obviously fed into the moral critiques (underdeveloped as they might be) of Brexiters, Donald Trump, the right-wing politicians elsewhere; the Great Recession only drove home how dangerous that inequality can be, and such danger was more powerfully articulated through moral language, rather than through mere appeals to interests.

Mapping a new way to think of moral economy has only begun; I only suggest possibilities for moving forward. Moral economy seemed to matter for building laws and institutions to regulate economic practice: laws are not functions of elite interests alone. Further, the role of systematized norms in constructing local economic relations and practices of economic fields has been explored, but requires further study. In particular, are there particular norms that are more readily implemented or have a better fit with different classes? This was part of the original moral economy formulation: peasants engaged in subsistence agriculture were more likely to embrace collective norms of reciprocity and redistribution, and perhaps this has been true for humans anywhere whose most important decision is how to survive, rather than what type of smartphone to buy. Are there patterns about the relation between structure and structural location (e. g. class, or race and ethnicity) and norms structured into a moral economy? That case is not so clear. Further, once upon a time, modernization theory posited that a particular set of norms was conducive to economic growth: for example, deferred gratification, meritocracy, universalism, rule or law, and the like. Later scholarship showed that these norms were less important than location in the structure of the global economy, or resource endowments, or institutions (although institutions that promote merit and the rule of law might contribute to economic performance).

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