Abstract
The connection between morals and markets, once a central concern of the discipline of sociology, now finds itself the focus of renewed popular and academic interest. We consider these relationships between moral codes and various aspects of market society through the lens of language, specifically the different forms of moral discourse that perpetually surround economic activity. Our review focuses on discourse produced by both individuals and institutions in three different areas of the literature: identity construction relative to the labor market, decision-making and boundary-maintenance in market environments, and the shared discourses that legitimate key aspects of market structures and economic systems. A theme across these literatures concerns the ways in which individuals use moral discourse to both legitimate their own economic activities and decisions even as these same discourses are shaped in key ways by the institutions of market society, such as the workplace. Accordingly, we argue that language represents a key link between the institutions that structure economic order (the workplace, corporations, governments, and families) and the larger moral codes that sustain them. We conclude that analyzing moral discourse can help to identify deeper dimensions of existing economic inequalities as well as imaging some of their solutions.
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Notes
- 1.
The methodological range of economic and cultural sociologists attests to the importance of multiple levels of inquiry, ranging from the discourse of collective enterprises to the cognitive workings of individual social actors. We believe it is important to distinguish between the “levels of morality” described through these various means, and to articulate the unique value of these different approaches. Intentionally worded surveys can measure unconscious moral constructs (Vaisey 2009) interviews can illustrate “accounts” prepared for public display and evaluation (Wuthnow 1996), and legal norms and other collectively-produced public statements illustrate the commonly shared moral beliefs of any given society (e.g. Abend 2008). All of these approaches offer important findings about moral reasoning, including the ideas and strategies embraced by individuals (as evidenced by interviews), the shared moral schema that underlie their activities and attitudes (as in multivariable analysis), as well as the larger social constructs that speak to shared, even taken for granted moral norms (e.g. legal codes).
- 2.
The significance of “framing” analyses, for example could be significantly enhanced via careful attention to the ways in which different social groups are more likely to produce certain interpretations as well as find particular frames more resonant and compelling (Walder 2009).
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Stephen Vaisey for his useful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
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Massengill, R.P., Reynolds, A. (2010). Moral Discourse in Economic Contexts. In: Hitlin, S., Vaisey, S. (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Morality. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6896-8_26
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