The Moral Economists: R. H. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, E. P. Thompson, and the Critique of Capitalism

H. Rogan participates in their task by concisely and insightfully excavating the context, meaning, and significance of their pioneering contributions, successfully linking their causes to our contemporary quandaries."--Samuel Moyn, Yale University"This important book examines the origins, content, development, and eclipse of the ‘moral economy' in twentieth-century British thought. H. From the Back Cover"In a marriage of historical imagination and brilliant timing, Tim Rogan offers a marvelous survey of ethical critics of capitalism in twentieth-century England. Thompson. Tawney to Amartya Sen, these intellectuals appealed to hidden solidarities to contrast with market values. Tawney, Karl Polanyi, and E. P. Rogan gives a close and illuminating reading of key texts by these authors, uncovers forgotten intellectual connections that link them together, and reveals a distinctive lineage of social criticism that

Tawney, Karl Polanyi, and E. They used makeshift languages of “tradition” and “custom” to describe them until Thompson patented the idea of the “moral economy.” Their program began as a way of theorizing everything economics left out, but in challenging utilitarian orthodoxy in economics from the outside, they anticipated the work of later innovators inside economics.Examining the moral cornerstones of a twentieth-century critique of capitalism, The Moral Economists explains why this critique fell into disuse, and how it might be reformulated for the twenty-first century.. Rejecting the social philosophy of laissez-faire but fearing authoritarianism, these writers sought out forms of social solidarity closer than individualism admitted but f

Tim Rogan is a fellow of St. . Catharine’s College, Cambridge, where he teaches history