A Note on the Idea of the Moral Economy

In their research note Robert Bates and Amy Curry (1992) have drawn our attention to the importance for political science of the challenges posed by the moral economic approach. Using their essay as a springboard and recasting their understanding of the idea of the moral economy, I show that the full significance of this controversy would be better illuminated by moving the debate on to a different terrain, one that captures the fundamental sources of the antagonism between the moral economic and competing approaches. I begin by setting out the central difficulty in Bates and Curry's reading of the moral economy argument and relate that to how the controversy has been framed in the recent political science literature. I then offer a sketch of the core claims of the moral economic approach, drawing out the radicalness of their challenge, and offer an estimate of their weaknesses and value. I conclude with some observations about political philosophy and the idea of the moral economy.