WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:09.400 Hello everyone welcome to this fifth lecture in economic anthropology. Today we're going to talk 00:00:09.400 --> 00:00:18.200 about this concept that has influenced a whole lot of anthropologists and historians which is the moral 00:00:18.200 --> 00:00:23.350 economy and it captures much of what we have NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:00:23.350 --> 00:00:31.299 been talking about so far in this course, and also perhaps opens up for some criticism and some 00:00:31.299 --> 00:00:40.100 critical thinking at this point about what we thought we knew. So all that is to come, but as you know 00:00:40.100 --> 00:00:49.500 we are building up our resources here to understand economic life and I wanted you to remember where 00:00:49.500 --> 00:00:53.150 I started off these lectures NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:00:53.150 --> 00:00:59.600 it was with my own experience from taking this course in maybe 2010 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:07.250 or something and telling my cousin that I like this course and him saying then NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:01:07.250 --> 00:01:14.300 what does anthropology really have to do with economy, remember? and I was a bit taken aback by that 00:01:14.300 --> 00:01:22.700 question, and it was as if he was saying you know anthropology isn't that the study of humans in their 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:32.200 social context and all their interrelatedness? kinship, relations, religious phenomena, historical 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:33.650 structures, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:01:33.650 --> 00:01:42.200 Norms, implicit expectations, cultures, values, notions of right and wrong what does economy have to do 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:48.800 with all that. The first lectures can NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:57.000 be heard as an answer to that question it has a whole lot to do with notions of right and wrong in the 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:09.900 economy but with gift exchange home turf of anthropologists, social contexts, religion we remember the 00:02:09.900 --> 00:02:17.850 devil worship in the minds of Latin America in the 60s that Taussig writes about. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:02:17.850 --> 00:02:27.650 We will have another text for this week on Pentecostal religion and its relation to consumption in 00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:37.200 Ghana so it turns out that economic life that is what people do as they exchange, produce, consume, 00:02:37.200 --> 00:02:46.600 distribute values this is what we can understand as economic, it turns out that economic life has a 00:02:46.600 --> 00:02:47.750 whole lot to do with NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:02:47.750 --> 00:02:56.300 everything else that defines human life you cannot understand economy as a separate sphere so actually 00:02:56.300 --> 00:03:07.000 the extent to which the economy appears as something separate and cutoff is for us to ponder and 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:15.300 for us to explain as a phenomenon itself and I'm saying this just as a way to take a step back and 00:03:15.300 --> 00:03:17.850 say you know what are the key lessons NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:03:17.850 --> 00:03:25.900 that we've had this far in this course and if you forgive me I just want to do that I want to 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:34.000 take one step back in order to go two steps forward in this lecture. So let me try and run one 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:43.700 kind of summary of a fragment of one perspective on this in the syllabus let me try and 00:03:43.700 --> 00:03:48.200 run that past you in the form of a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 59% (MEDIUM) 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:52.950 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:52.950 --> 00:03:58.900 cartoon dialogue let's see if we can summarize this course in the form of a cartoon dialogue okay 00:03:58.900 --> 00:04:01.500 and do not quote me on this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:04:03.600 --> 00:04:15.700 yeah because I might get in trouble, but just as a fun exercise and as a way to try to push 00:04:15.700 --> 00:04:23.100 yourselves and push me to see relations and connections in the syllabus let me try and summarize this 00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:28.600 thing in the form of a cartoon conversation. So we start off NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:38.900 with the Friedman's and their intellectual inspiration Adam Smith saying you know 00:04:38.900 --> 00:04:49.400 humans everywhere had this natural tendency to truck barter and exchange barter barter and exchange 00:04:49.400 --> 00:04:55.900 and they kind of walk onto the stage and they declare this without much evidence but based on intuition 00:04:55.900 --> 00:04:58.750 and what is more NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:04:58.750 --> 00:05:09.300 more this natural tendency and market exchange is our natural state of affairs and when we build 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:16.000 societies based on this principle when we scale that principle up and let people be left alone to 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:21.300 follow their self-interest well then good things happen for everyone. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:05:21.300 --> 00:05:25.200 Then comes Mauss NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:33.100 Polanyi and Malinowski onto the stage saying wait a minute look at all these far away people's all 00:05:33.100 --> 00:05:42.000 these societies back in history far removed and in geography doing things that do not look like 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:48.600 profit maximisation. It don't seem to be doing much market exchange at all in fact it's mostly about 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:56.600 gift-giving for these people so it seems market exchanges is not our natural state of affairs NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:05.800 at least the Kula the potlatch systems all these pre-capitalist economic systems run on a 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:13.800 different logic on reciprocity redistribution and house holding that is production for 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:23.000 self-sufficiency, production for use that Polanyi is saying. So perhaps this 00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:25.600 system perhaps this thing that these guys are NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:33.000 talking about is actually not something natural perhaps the system which makes profit-seeking and 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:39.200 free quote unquote market exchange into the foundation of its economy that is a modern 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:40.550 invention NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:06:40.550 --> 00:06:49.100 that needs to be understood as a modern invention and political project and at specific time at a 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:51.200 specific place. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:06:51.200 --> 00:07:01.600 all right so then someone like Taussig and Tsing comes along into the syllabus saying well NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:07:01.600 --> 00:07:10.700 duh there is a gift logic also at the heart of capitalist value production remember Marx remember 00:07:10.700 --> 00:07:17.400 that the road to making capitalist profit starts off often times with a gift the gift of people 00:07:17.400 --> 00:07:22.950 giving up their right to the profit that their labor produces. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:07:22.950 --> 00:07:33.400 okay people are giving up part of their profits of their labor process letting 00:07:33.400 --> 00:07:40.550 themselves be commodified and then of course we can go all the way back to Polanyi again 00:07:40.550 --> 00:07:44.850 saying well don't you remember I said that labor and land NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:07:44.850 --> 00:07:51.600 Are fictitious commodities they are not made for the market NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:07:51.600 --> 00:08:00.500 they are fictitious, it takes a whole lot of work to turn them into Commodities and then Taussig of 00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:05.800 course says hell yes Karl Polanyi you are right you're damn right about fictitious Commodities look 00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:11.300 here at these people these mining and plantation workers in Latin America it hurts when people's 00:08:11.300 --> 00:08:18.400 labor gets turned into a commodity it bloody hurts and look at these people who start to worship the 00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:22.400 devil when they are turned into commodities in the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:08:22.400 --> 00:08:24.600 labor market so literally NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:31.150 hell yes Polanyi. All right this is one NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:08:31.150 --> 00:08:40.299 caricature but it captures I think some elements of the way this syllabus has flowed in the 00:08:40.299 --> 00:08:47.400 way the insights have accumulated over the last four or five weeks. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:08:47.400 --> 00:08:57.800 It is again not a complete rundown of the syllabus in any way shape or form but rather an example 00:08:57.800 --> 00:09:04.100 how I'm putting this out there to push you to see how you can make some connections how you can try 00:09:04.100 --> 00:09:11.000 to start making connections in syllabus and I encourage this again and again and it can be 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:17.750 hard but also rewarding I think for your exams and for your intellectual development. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 70% (MEDIUM) 00:09:17.750 --> 00:09:25.500 Right so that was a step back so now for the step forward in this lecture. One of the 00:09:25.500 --> 00:09:32.200 concepts that we receive and that we talked about is this notion of the double movement 00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:41.000 remember from Polanyi's text, if the great transformation is about how land and 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:47.700 labor was turned into commodities for sale to the highest bidder in the marketplace NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:09:47.700 --> 00:09:55.050 then says Polanyi remember that is a Utopia it will never NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:09:55.050 --> 00:10:04.500 function like that the completely self-regulating free market is an illusion. It is an Utopia, NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:10:04.500 --> 00:10:11.100 it's a dream of the free market proponents that is actually impossible because it's totally 00:10:11.100 --> 00:10:19.500 dis-embedded self-regulating market would collapse under the weight of social upheaval, why? because 00:10:19.500 --> 00:10:26.100 there are counter movements to treating land and labor as nothing but commodities we all know 00:10:26.100 --> 00:10:31.700 this you know you kind of cut people up from the social fabric and move them around as if they were 00:10:31.700 --> 00:10:34.700 commodities in the marketplace they go crazy, look at NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:10:34.700 --> 00:10:39.600 Chaplin I won't play the clip but I'm sure that some of you have seen the modern times 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:48.700 film which is basically a critique of industrial capitalism where Chaplin is an assembly line 00:10:48.700 --> 00:10:59.250 worker who disappears into the into the wheels and mechanics of the factory and go crazy. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:10:59.250 --> 00:11:05.800 so Polanyi claims because land and labor are fictitious commodity the free market society can 00:11:05.800 --> 00:11:10.100 never fully succeed, there is a push back. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:10.900 --> 00:11:14.500 So if NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:14.900 --> 00:11:21.300 double movement means that there is a wave of there's any kind of an ebb and flow marketization and 00:11:21.300 --> 00:11:28.000 resistance today we look at what characterises that push back what does a double movement look like in 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:29.500 practice NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:35.600 what does the dis-embedding of the economy look like in practice and what characterises the 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:43.800 counter push the popular resistance to the expansion of the market logic where the moral sentiments 00:11:43.800 --> 00:11:52.700 that people draw from to contest the logic of supply and demand NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:11:52.700 --> 00:12:04.500 this is where the concept of the moral economy comes in and I'll spend a bit of time on this guy he 00:12:04.500 --> 00:12:15.000 EP Thompson and not so much perhaps is on Scott and Meyer, I just want to 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:20.150 highlight this is not a substitute for reading Thompson or indeed any of the other texts okay. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:12:20.150 --> 00:12:28.600 This week has a lot for you I think and it has potential to I mean you could you could enhance your 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:37.100 thinking by really doing the readings this week as you can any of the other weeks but just to say 00:12:37.100 --> 00:12:44.800 that this is not a substitute for reading any of these texts. Thompson is as I think I mentioned in 00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:50.250 posts on canvas rather long piece but do give it a go. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:12:50.250 --> 00:12:56.800 I encourage you to shut off your phones for a few hours for even more than a few hours and read it 00:12:56.800 --> 00:13:05.500 so that you shut off these technologies you know that corporation say that they are giving to 00:13:05.500 --> 00:13:14.900 us hello we are being given something they claim that it is free these technologies but they are 00:13:14.900 --> 00:13:16.200 indeed not. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:20.100 This should sound familiar to you at this point NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:13:22.400 --> 00:13:29.900 so these technologies that make your cell phones buzz and captures your attention just so major 00:13:29.900 --> 00:13:35.700 corporations can make more money shut these things off and have a look at what EP Thompson has 00:13:35.700 --> 00:13:43.650 to say about the moral economy. He is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:13:43.650 --> 00:13:48.800 A historian another character who works in this intersection between anthropology and 00:13:48.800 --> 00:13:55.300 history you see the trobrianders pop up in his text a few times again demonstrating that the 00:13:55.300 --> 00:14:06.650 enormous influence that the work of Malinowski and other ethnographic pioneers have had in 00:14:06.650 --> 00:14:09.050 economic history NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:14:09.050 --> 00:14:18.600 and again these ideas of historians which were in their time influenced by anthropologists have come 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:25.850 back to inspire and influence and apologists in later times. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:14:25.850 --> 00:14:33.400 He's known for writing history from below people's history whenever you hear people saying those 00:14:33.400 --> 00:14:38.900 things they can trace it back to I'm writing people's history history from below that goes back to 00:14:38.900 --> 00:14:40.150 EP Thompson NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:14:40.150 --> 00:14:53.750 very influential historian and writing in the thick of the Industrial Revolution. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:14:53.750 --> 00:15:05.800 He's writing about events happening in you could say in the great transformation that he describes from a 00:15:05.800 --> 00:15:16.000 very empirical detailed historical perspective so he writes against what he calls a spasmodic view of 00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:24.300 popular history. A person with spasms it's a person who's limbs NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:15:24.300 --> 00:15:33.700 just kind of flip out and or who have no control over their body who reacts for instance to a 00:15:33.700 --> 00:15:42.100 serious situation because he or she is that hungry for examples it's literal NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:15:42.100 --> 00:15:49.150 Gut reflex that people have no control over NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:15:49.150 --> 00:15:55.400 so of course Thompson's looks at the seventeen hundreds and he 00:15:55.400 --> 00:16:03.500 sees all these food and bread riots in key dates across the seventeen hundreds in the US 00:16:03.500 --> 00:16:12.050 what is going on here it historians before Thompson interpreted these as NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:16:12.050 --> 00:16:18.900 basically people losing their shit because they got so desperate because the prices of bread got so 00:16:18.900 --> 00:16:28.800 high or the supply of bread was so low they just lost their shit and started a riot. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:16:29.100 --> 00:16:37.300 No says EP Thompson there is something evidently something deeper going on here these people rioted 00:16:37.300 --> 00:16:45.200 and they resisted against high prices against Market speculation from people who bake and 00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:49.200 distributed and made money from bread NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 74% (MEDIUM) 00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:56.600 but they did that because they had a consensus at the heart of it a background consensus of what was 00:16:56.600 --> 00:16:59.800 right and wrong in economic affairs. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:16:59.800 --> 00:17:11.500 You couldn't just do anything as a market trader as a capitalist as a miller as a 00:17:11.500 --> 00:17:19.700 baker that you came up against this moral consensus that define what it was natural and indeed 00:17:19.700 --> 00:17:26.700 possible for market people to do and this is what he calls the moral economy. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:17:30.200 --> 00:17:38.400 It's a definition and now maybe some of you are reaching for your pencils or copying something 00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:45.500 off the page now we need to remember this definition but no and again not a substitute for 00:17:45.500 --> 00:17:50.900 understanding the concept more generally but this definition can it help us getting there. 00:17:50.900 --> 00:17:58.150 He writes that the moral economy is a popular consensus as to what were legitimate and what were 00:17:58.150 --> 00:18:00.600 illegitimate practices in marketing NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:18:00.600 --> 00:18:07.600 Milling baking Etc so notice here that this is a very specific definition of the moral economy for 00:18:07.600 --> 00:18:14.500 specific historical purposes in the seventeen hundreds and then we'll see later how this concept is 00:18:14.500 --> 00:18:24.500 traveled and expanded and he sheds light on lots of things outside the 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:30.750 Seventeen hundreds in England but it was made for this very purpose this very analytical NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 70% (MEDIUM) 00:18:30.750 --> 00:18:35.050 Purpose public consensus what was legitimate NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 68% (MEDIUM) 00:18:35.050 --> 00:18:37.350 what is right and wrong NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:18:37.350 --> 00:18:45.000 and practices of marketing, milling, baking Etc and second sentence consistent traditional view of 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.100 social norms and obligations of the proper economic functions of several parties within the 00:18:50.100 --> 00:18:56.200 community proper economic function so this notion of what is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:10.199 legitimate again. So deeply kind of felt consensus about what prices for example ought to be in times of 00:19:10.199 --> 00:19:18.900 drought for example or when the harvest is gone bad. What is the price it 00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:24.500 is all hardly you know there's very little bread around what should be the price of bread in that 00:19:24.500 --> 00:19:26.900 situation should we just let the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:19:26.900 --> 00:19:37.800 markets deal with prices in other words should we let the prices go through the roof or is there a 00:19:37.800 --> 00:19:46.300 moral obligation on the part of anyone who participates in economic life makes money or provides 00:19:46.300 --> 00:19:56.600 food and bread are they there to provide a social service or to make money NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:19:56.700 --> 00:19:59.300 and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:20:00.500 --> 00:20:10.800 In a sense Thompson is arguing that there's been a shift from a 00:20:10.800 --> 00:20:20.500 moral economy to or from a system where economic practice was more embedded you know Polanyi was more 00:20:20.500 --> 00:20:31.250 embedded was more rooted in Notions of right and wrong in social service in NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:42.800 notions of the commonwealth for everyone moving from that towards a system where economic practice 00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:55.500 like baking bread and selling it in the market is accepted and forced even as a way to make money and 00:20:55.500 --> 00:21:01.100 that's the end of the story. It's not your responsibility as a baker NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 49% (MEDIUM) 00:21:01.100 --> 00:21:03.100 anymore to NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:21:03.900 --> 00:21:11.800 think about the people you're selling bread to the you know getting into debt because you put the 00:21:11.800 --> 00:21:17.650 price too high that's not your responsibility in this new system, in a post-industrial 00:21:17.650 --> 00:21:27.200 revolution economy. so there's a kind of a historical argument here again about a shift that happened that 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:34.150 we can probably you know criticize and think critically about as we go along but there's NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:21:34.150 --> 00:21:43.600 a historical transformation at the heart of this text which takes us to scope the Seventeen 00:21:43.600 --> 00:21:54.750 hundreds. So Thompson's text is another thing to notice is a description of actual economic life NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:21:54.750 --> 00:22:03.200 what's the relationship between market practices especially the selling of bread and food and people's 00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:09.700 sense of right and wrong when it comes to those market practices and those two things sort of come 00:22:09.700 --> 00:22:20.150 together in one term the moral economy, so remember this is the seventeen hundreds people. 00:22:20.150 --> 00:22:22.900 Bottom of history of the Seventeen hundreds NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:22:22.900 --> 00:22:35.300 this is exactly the century in which Adam Smith is publishing his Wealth of Nations it is the thick 00:22:35.300 --> 00:22:43.000 of the Industrial Revolution The Wealth of Nations of course is the text where you have this phrase 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:49.400 of the Invisible Hand or Smith is saying that everyone is better off when the market is left to 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:51.000 produce NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:22:51.800 --> 00:23:04.700 economic affairs to organize economic affairs, and Thompson is very nitty-gritty we can say he 00:23:04.700 --> 00:23:11.050 describes markets as places where stuff actually happened NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:23:11.050 --> 00:23:20.300 in a time when the ideas of Adam Smith took hold started to take hold where the idea of letting 00:23:20.300 --> 00:23:31.300 market practices function unregulated without much intervention or concern of 00:23:31.300 --> 00:23:33.050 legislators NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:23:33.050 --> 00:23:41.000 EP Thompson was of course also a critic of Adam Smith saying that his book Adam Smith's book was 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:50.900 less an essay in empirical inquiry than a superb self validating essay in logic, for those 00:23:50.900 --> 00:23:55.600 of you who read and remember Chris Gregory this is part of the critique that Chris Gregory 00:23:55.600 --> 00:24:02.000 also has of the economic consensus rather the consensus in the NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:08.500 Conventional economics discipline in the chapter one of his book gifts and commodities. So 00:24:08.500 --> 00:24:18.500 there's a connection here, and it was in opposition Thompson pulls out this deeply 00:24:18.500 --> 00:24:26.100 empirical piece that we are reading today as 50 pages he's been I think 10 years collecting data for 00:24:26.100 --> 00:24:33.000 just this article the moral economy of the English crowd in the 1700s or whatever its called NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:45.700 really documenting step-by-step all the kinds of food uprisings and riots and discussions and 00:24:45.700 --> 00:24:58.600 disturbances in the markets places providing bread mostly. It goes through the letters of cell 00:24:58.600 --> 00:25:02.400 Traders and bakers and politicians threats and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:10.500 marketplaces diaries mayor's little notes in newspapers police journals everything that kind of he 00:25:10.500 --> 00:25:20.100 soaks up in order to paint a picture of what was going on in terms of social conflict and economic 00:25:20.100 --> 00:25:28.500 logic in the 1700s England any traces how especially in years of bad harvests NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:25:29.900 --> 00:25:38.000 people resisted and held the government accountable to intervene and clamp down on middlemen and 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:45.300 speculation and all kinds of tricks that middleman did to hike the prices to buy up everything on the 00:25:45.300 --> 00:25:53.100 market and then sell it in the same market to higher price creating monopolies and so especially in 00:25:53.100 --> 00:26:00.500 years of bad harvests riots emerged as a response to NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:26:03.300 --> 00:26:10.450 the dis-embedding of the economy from society as a response to this unbridled market capitalism that 00:26:10.450 --> 00:26:23.700 emerged and I want you to notice his examples find some of them and be concrete in when you write 00:26:23.700 --> 00:26:25.600 about these things NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:26:25.700 --> 00:26:37.500 There are endless examples like this in the text, someone hanging up a note saying 00:26:37.500 --> 00:26:46.000 you know identifying some I think these are miller's or dealers bread dealers in the market 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:52.600 identifying them saying this is to give you a warning that you must quit your unlawful dealing or 00:26:52.600 --> 00:26:56.400 die and be damned you're buying the corn NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:04.100 to starve the poor inhabitants of the city and suburbs to send the France so 00:27:04.100 --> 00:27:13.700 these dealers shipped bread and flour abroad instead of supplying for their own people and you 00:27:13.700 --> 00:27:15.700 know there are people NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:27:16.300 --> 00:27:24.500 saying you better not keep doing this because we're coming for you NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:27:24.800 --> 00:27:30.400 and this is an example of how NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:27:31.300 --> 00:27:36.300 Market actors were threatened NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:49.800 to set their prices on the on the basis of something else and simple supply and demand mechanism 00:27:49.800 --> 00:27:56.600 so people rebel against those who bought up the market to sell higher prices or who 00:27:56.600 --> 00:28:06.100 sold off their trade their goods to foreign lands and they had an effect NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:28:06.500 --> 00:28:15.000 this is not the logic of supply and demand but it's the logic of we demand Thompson surveys 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:21.300 newspapers and letters in the Seventeen hundreds finds a series of threats and signs to organize 00:28:21.300 --> 00:28:30.900 against high prices and in moral market practices letters to marketeers middlemen politicians and 00:28:30.900 --> 00:28:36.050 others people burn down mills and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:28:36.050 --> 00:28:46.300 Threw even the produce to the side he quotes crowd that gathered outside the baker and set the 00:28:46.300 --> 00:28:54.300 price of bread we demand we decide what the price is going to be, it's not for you to decide and they 00:28:54.300 --> 00:29:01.900 The bakers and traders and miller's did not have much choice then to oblige. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:11.000 In the 1740s at Norwich people went to every baker in the city and fixed a note on his door 00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:22.700 in these words wheat at sixteen shillings so people set the price not supply and demand, and 00:29:22.700 --> 00:29:29.800 these says Thompson were not spasms they were not NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:29:31.300 --> 00:29:38.900 stuff that just happened because people were hungry no they were calculated protests and threats 00:29:38.900 --> 00:29:50.600 based not on pure desperation but on people being morally indignant people being upset because 00:29:50.600 --> 00:29:56.100 their sense of right and wrong had been challenged NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 49% (MEDIUM) 00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:59.400 and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:29:59.700 --> 00:30:07.100 the agency of these people who rioted got together in marketplaces often led by women by the 00:30:07.100 --> 00:30:24.000 way is their agency is evident in that they didn't often even take the food and you know just eat 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:29.700 the food or distributed amongst themselves they even threw it to the side the point was to 00:30:29.700 --> 00:30:30.850 scare NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:30:30.850 --> 00:30:48.200 and to discipline the market actors into taking their needs into concern into consideration NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:57.500 so this is what Thompson says about the effects what were the effects 00:30:57.500 --> 00:31:03.650 Were they successful how successful were they well it says that although these threats of 00:31:03.650 --> 00:31:11.300 violence of rioting and also real riots often in other places with great costs with you know produce 00:31:11.300 --> 00:31:18.000 Calamity people were killed and these moral complaints and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:26.900 threats they lead to norms they produce norms it teaches dealers and miller's to know that there are 00:31:26.900 --> 00:31:35.000 limits to their economic behaviour there are boundaries that they cannot cross it keeps their drive 00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:38.900 towards profit maximisation in check NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:31:39.300 --> 00:31:47.750 and the point for Thompson is not just that the prices are determined by many other factors and mere 00:31:47.750 --> 00:31:57.200 Market forces but rather that markets function within a total socio-economic context he says this 00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:03.800 should set off a bell in your head remember Mauss and the total social phenomena how you 00:32:03.800 --> 00:32:05.500 understand NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:32:05.500 --> 00:32:19.150 economy as a system that is intertwined with all of the domains of society so he kind of says that 00:32:19.150 --> 00:32:30.750 these norms and the pushback and the kind of moral landscape that people lived in the way they shape 00:32:30.750 --> 00:32:33.200 that this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:32:33.600 --> 00:32:36.900 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:47.600 subtle sense of right and wrong that people drew on shaped the economy NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:32:47.900 --> 00:32:54.900 the markets functioned based on the logic of crowd pressure NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:57.900 so NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:32:58.700 --> 00:33:10.300 there is a sense again that the economy is not just nickels and dimes people calculating in 00:33:10.300 --> 00:33:21.100 order to get more for less there's a reality out there that it helps shape with economic 00:33:21.100 --> 00:33:23.100 behavior NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:33:23.600 --> 00:33:30.900 and that is the reality that Thompson tries to capture and inspires us to understand with his 00:33:30.900 --> 00:33:34.600 concept of the moral economy NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:33:34.700 --> 00:33:48.300 so think for yourselves what other cases can you come up with that exemplify a moral economy the 00:33:48.300 --> 00:33:57.300 obvious answer is of course the two other texts from the syllabus Scott Meyers pieces but I want you 00:33:57.300 --> 00:34:04.600 to think for yourself also a bit as well now we're going to take a break. What other examples NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 70% (MEDIUM) 00:34:04.600 --> 00:34:14.800 can you have is this something completely of the past or are there examples of what Thompson 00:34:14.800 --> 00:34:21.699 writes about this concept of the moral economy in our time even in our society I want you to 00:34:21.699 --> 00:34:28.199 think about that and think just to identify where we're going a bit think also critically perhaps in 00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:34.550 the seminars or at a later stage what problems can you see inherent in the concept of the moral NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:40.500 economy what criticism can you make of this analysis that EP Thompson lays out these are 00:34:40.500 --> 00:34:45.400 questions that will get back to in the next recording