Moralizing Capitalism (eBook)

Series Editors’ Preface 6
Acknowledgements 11
Contents 13
Notes on Contributors 16
Abbreviations 21
List of Tables 23
Chapter 1 Introduction: Moralizing Capitalism: Agents, Discourses and Practices of Capitalism and Anti-capitalism in the Modern Age 24
‘Moralizing Capitalism’? Concept and Idea 24
A New History of Capitalism? 28
Histories of Capitalism and Questions of Morality 31
‘Moralizing Capitalism’: Concern and Structure of This Book 39
‘Moralizing Capitalism’: A Research Programme 44
Part I History of Knowledge 50
Chapter 2 Teaching Capitalism: The Popularization of Economic Knowledge in Britain and Germany (1800–1850) 51
Education and Economy 55
Political Economy in Schools 59
Women, Children and the Economy 63
Capitalism as Providence 68
Economic Knowledge in School Instruction in Germany 71
Chapter 3 Moralizing Wealth: German Debates About Capitalism and Jews in the Early Twentieth Century 80
Introduction 80
Moralizing Wealth Around 1900: Statistics and the Public 83
Moralizing Wealth: Jews as Capitalism’s Profiteers Around 1900 90
Constructing Wealth Around 1900 96
Chapter 4 The Moral Foundation of Modern Capitalism: Towards a Historical Reconsideration of Max Weber’s ‘Protestant Ethic’ 99
Interests and Objectives 101
The Composition of the PE: A Brief Overview 102
Modern Capitalism (1): The Basic Model 106
The Moral Foundation of Modern Capitalism: Protestant Ethic 109
Early Reception of the PE (1905–1920) 113
Recent Historical Readings of the PE (After 1980) 118
Modern Capitalism (2): The Moral Dilemma of the Market 123
Coda 127
Part II Capitalism and the Political 129
Chapter 5 ‘We Only Want to Pay What Is Fair’: Capital, Morals, and Taxes in Canada 1867–1917 130
Demoralizing Capital 132
Remoralizing Capital: Local Beginnings 138
Remoralizing Capital: The Nation-State 147
Conclusion 152
Chapter 6 Humanizing Capitalism: The Educational Mission of the Ford Foundation in West Germany and the United States (1945–1960) 153
Re-educating Germans: Humanized Capitalism as a Strategy to Instil Democracy 157
Humanizing Capitalism Through Great Books: The Fund for Adult Education 165
Management Education as a Moral Gospel of Capitalism 171
Conclusion 175
Chapter 7 ‘Corporate Citizens’ at the United Nations: The 1973 GEP Hearings and the New Spirit of Multinational Business 177
Introduction 177
Four Reasons Why Multinational Corporations Became a Key Issue in International Politics 181
The ‘Group of Eminent Persons’ Hearings on Multinational Corporations 186
The Stakes of the Game for Multinational Corporations 188
Imagining Multinational Corporations in the World Economy: Four Visions 193
Conclusions 199
Part III Ethics and Merchants 202
Chapter 8 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Commercial Honour at the New York Stock Exchange During the Progressive Era 203
Virtuous Insiders, Vicious Outsiders? Self-Regulation and the Vision of Commercial Morality 208
Moral Ambivalences: Fighting Bucket-Shops, Promoting Unregulated Markets 211
Regulating Business Conduct: Group Conformity Instead of Norm Conformity 213
Conclusion: Taming Mr Hyde—to Some Extent 219
Chapter 9 Bankruptcy and Morality in a Capitalist Market Economy: The Case of Mid-Nineteenth-Century France 221
Belated Debates, Belated Reactions 225
Flaws of the 1807 Napoleonic Bankruptcy Law 227
Legal Technicality Instead of High Expectations 232
Challenges of Industrialization 233
A Law of Exceptions for an Exceptional Event 234
Deficiencies of Legal Practice 238
Rhetorics and Arguments 239
Hedging the Ubiquity of Debt 243
Part IV Social Movements and Moral Concerns 246
Chapter 10 US Catholicism and Economic Justice: 1919–1929 247
Introduction 247
John A. Ryan and the 1919 ‘Bishops’ Program for Social Reconstruction’ 253
After the Wall Street Crash 258
The ‘Statement on the Present Crisis’ 261
Conclusion 263
Chapter 11 The Discourse Against ‘Shameful Profiteering’ in Greece 1914–1925: Notions of Exploitation, Anticapitalist Morality and the Concept of Moral Economy 265
Profiteering and Its Persecution in Greece in the 1910s 266
Shameful Profiteering and the Notion of Exploitation: An Alternative Interpretation 269
What to Do with the Concept of Moral Economy: Morality and Hegemony 276
Chapter 12 Dilemmas of Moral Markets: Conflicting Narratives in the West German Fair Trade Movement 281
Introduction 281
Morals and Markets: Competing Theoretical Approaches 284
The Formation of the West German Fair Trade Movement 289
Establishing Fair Trade: Early Concepts for an ‘Alternative Third World Trade’ 293
Alternative? What Alternative? Conflicting Concepts in the West German Fair Trade Movement in the 1980s 299
Conclusion: Moralizing Capitalism by Moralizing Consumers? 303
Chapter 13 Economic Boom, Workers’ Literature, and Morality in the West Germany of the 1960s and Early 1970s 307
Workers’ Literature Between Literary Aspirations and Political Practice 310
Critique of Fordist Working Conditions and the Limits of What Could Be Said 315
‘Economic Miracle’, the Nazi Past, and the Cold War 321
Conclusion 326
Archive 328
Index 329