Abstract

Corporate scandals since the 1990s have made it clear that economic wrong-doing is more common in Western societies than might be expected. This volume examines the relationship between such wrong-doing and the neoliberal orientations, policies, and practices that have been influential since around 1980, considering whether neoliberalism has affected the likelihood that people and firms will act in ways that many people would consider wrong. It furthermore asks whether ideas of economic right and wrong have become so fragmented and localized that collective judgement has become almost impossible.

“Truly outstanding in every respect… [the volume] shows that anthropologists can productively complicate our view of contemporary issues whilst simultaneously advancing our understanding of what is going on in our world in a very revealing and ethnographically grounded way.” • John Gledhill, University of Manchester

“An insightful and prescient contribution to economic anthropology and sociology… its framing of the key issues is clever and compelling, and it provides a productive vocabulary that promises to become a touchstone for the field.” • Edward F. Fischer, Vanderbilt University

James G. Carrier is Associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. His publications on economy and society include Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700 (Routledge, 1995), Meanings of the Market (Berg, 1997, ed.), Ethical Consumption: Social Value and Economic Practice (Berghahn, 2012, ed. with P. Luetchford) and Anthropologies of Class (Cambridge, 2015, ed. with D. Kalb).