Moral Philosophy and Economic Sociology: What MacIntyre Learnt from Polanyi

McMylor, Peter

doi:10.1080/0390670032000117344

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The term does not denote the economy's separation from society but from non‐economic institutions, a separation that produces a rift between individual and society and a resulting moral degeneration. Polanyi's argument here has been likened by Peter McMylor to Alasdair MacIntyre's understanding of liberal ethics: that liberalism cannot do without a moral discourse and is in the abstract sense “ethically embedded,” but is best grasped as an incoherent moral tradition because it arises from within a compartmentalized social order (see MacIntyre 2007; McMylor 2003, 1994).…”

Section: Neo‐polanyian Interpretationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lineages of Embeddedness: On the Antecedents and Successors of a Polanyian Concept

Dale

2011

American J Econ Sociol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the 1980s, much debate has revolved around Karl Polanyi's concept of the “dis/embedded economy,” generating some light and not a little heat. This paper looks at three reasons that account for part of the “heat.” It begins by tracing the sources upon which Polanyi drew. They include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Max Weber, along with anthropology of the inter‐war period, and German and American Institutionalist economics. After exploring the differing ways in which these varying currents conceptualize the relationship between economy and society, I explore the different interpretations of what Polanyi means by embeddedness, and the different purposes to which contemporary economic sociologists have put the term. For some, he is held up as the originator of a line of sociological analysis that treats “the economy” as a subsystem “embedded in” a social system. In this reading the emphasis is upon the moral underpinnings of market behavior, in contrast to the naturalism of Ricardo, Malthus and their heirs. For others, his “disembedding” thesis contains a more radical tale: of the market economy coming to dominate “society,” bringing forth a sorcerer's apprentice world of untrammeled market forces that, although human creations, lie beyond conscious human control.

show abstract

Section: Neo‐polanyian Interpretationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lineages of Embeddedness: On the Antecedents and Successors of a Polanyian Concept

Dale

2011

American J Econ Sociol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Concretely, he argues that while the modern world has roots going back into the medieval period, the process of transformation ‘was not completed until the nineteenth century’ (MacIntyre, 1984, p. 253; 1985a, p. 239; compare McMylor, 1994, pp. 77–108; 2003). In fact, MacIntyre's utilisation of Polanyi illuminates his discussion of Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class noted above.…”

Section: Macintyre and The Working Class: Practice And Revolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alasdair MacIntyre: Social Practices, Marxism and Ethical Anti-Capitalism

Blackledge

2009

Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Alasdair MacIntyre's concept of social practice sits at the core of his account of the virtue‐fostering forms of resistance to capitalism, liberalism and the modern (un)democratic state. However, while this concept was articulated, in part, as a response to perceived weaknesses with Marx's analysis of working‐class revolutionary praxis, and although MacIntyre has criticised Marx for the paucity of his theorisation of such practice, he has himself only gestured towards concrete instances of his alternative. This essay engages with one of these examples: MacIntyre's suggestion that Welsh mining communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should be numbered among those modern communities within which the virtues have flourished. I explore some of the ramifications of this example for MacIntyre's broader ethical theory through the lens of a discussion of the continuities and breaks between his youthful Marxism and his more mature thought. I suggest that this example problematises his concept of practice in a way that implies a space for reconciliation between his mature thought and his earlier Marxism.

show abstract

CSR and the strait‐jacket of economic rationality

Brooks

2010

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that the corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse has taken a wrong turn in its historical development, which risks a restriction of our thinking.Design/methodology/approachThe paper has two main sections followed by a concluding discussion. First, the way in which even proponents of CSR have allowed a search for a link between engagement in CSR and firm performance to become a predominant strand of the debate is explored. Second, the way that economic rationality has developed through the sociology of economic behaviour is examined to provide a novel lens through which to view CSR.FindingsIt is contended that arguments for CSR based in morality and ethics have been at least partially foreclosed by the CSR academy's response to pronouncements on the topic made by Milton Friedman in 1970. It is argued that, in responding to his arguments largely in the terms dictated by those arguments, the critical potential of CSR is diminished.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper suggests alternative intellectual resources that might help to re‐balance this debate, drawing on what might broadly be called the sociology of economic behaviour. The paper concludes by calling for a re‐moralised CSR, reminding one that economic activity is embedded in social relations.Originality/valueAttempts to critique CSR through lenses afforded by sociology are comparatively rare. This paper shows how the true nature of predominant preoccupations in the mainly business‐related debates on CSR can be more openly seen as being economically rational when examined using theoretical frames and language from sociology.

show abstract

Moral Philosophy and Economic Sociology: What MacIntyre Learnt from Polanyi

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

Lineages of Embeddedness: On the Antecedents and Successors of a Polanyian Concept

Lineages of Embeddedness: On the Antecedents and Successors of a Polanyian Concept

Alasdair MacIntyre: Social Practices, Marxism and Ethical Anti-Capitalism

CSR and the strait‐jacket of economic rationality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About