WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:10.400 Alright we're back to the second half of the lecture and I hope what we're talking about now is 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:17.800 feeling somewhat familiar to that because we are very much moving in the same terrain as we have 00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:28.600 before you know we see that yes for this concept of the moral economy and the data that we're 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:31.600 represented by EP Thompson NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:43.600 and James Scott we see that yes supply and demand profit motive these things play a key role in 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:47.250 the way economic life NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:00:47.250 --> 00:00:53.050 takes shape yes people like to buy low and sell high NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:00:53.050 --> 00:00:55.100 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:00:55.100 --> 00:01:06.250 and yes the market traders in Thompson's texts were out to seek profit yes economic incentives 00:01:06.250 --> 00:01:20.000 matter as these classical economics text told us from Smith and onwards, yes to all of that but NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:31.400 economic profit incentives are not everything that matters in fact economic incentives the 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:40.200 search for ways to make more economic profit is perhaps not even the main thing that matters when it 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:49.100 comes to the actual functioning of markets that's basically what's Thompson and as we'll talk about 00:01:49.100 --> 00:01:49.800 now Scott NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:55.250 are saying there are other dynamics that shape economic life NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:01:55.250 --> 00:02:05.000 the crowd that comes and talks about the resistance of the crowd based on a moral consensus based on 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:11.850 a shared consensus of right and wrong this consensus NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:02:11.850 --> 00:02:21.200 and the resistance that it provoked evidently shaped market practices in the 1700s says EP Thompson 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:25.650 now James Scott NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:02:25.650 --> 00:02:38.300 a few years later in this 1977 I think book develops the idea and the concept of EP Thompson further 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:46.500 and he's perhaps the one who really turned the moral economy into widely known widely discussed 00:02:46.500 --> 00:02:55.850 concept now you can find dozens if not hundreds of articles books that discusses this NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:02:55.850 --> 00:03:02.300 Concept across disciplines including very significantly including anthropology and economic 00:03:02.300 --> 00:03:12.100 anthropology. So James Scott develops the same idea as EP Thompson there is something else in 00:03:12.100 --> 00:03:19.000 addition to or something even more important than the incentives to making a profit that shape 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:23.450 people's lives and in particularly he says NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:23.450 --> 00:03:29.900 the lives of the peasants the moral economy of the peasant rebellion and subsistence in Southeast 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:40.700 Asia it's his title so straight off the bat we're talking about subsistence peasants NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:40.700 --> 00:03:46.400 what is a peasant and why isn't he calling these people farmers NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:03:46.500 --> 00:03:56.550 the word peasant apparently peers in English in late I think medieval times and it's used to refer 00:03:56.550 --> 00:04:03.500 to the rural poor rural residents serves agricultural labourers the common people and it's often 00:04:03.500 --> 00:04:12.500 conceptually separated from the term farmers because peasants work for subsistence rather 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:16.700 than primarily rather than for making a profit. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:04:18.399 --> 00:04:28.600 So we are now firmly placed in one of Polanyis three principles for economic systems that 00:04:28.600 --> 00:04:36.299 characterized most of human history as we know he put it reciprocity redistribution and householding NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 73% (MEDIUM) 00:04:36.299 --> 00:04:45.200 so we're now in house holding land here. Again this is an example of how you can make 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:53.350 comparisons and draw on the ideas of the authors. These are people peasants doing householding producing 00:04:53.350 --> 00:05:02.400 not you know Goods not for exchange producing food not for exchange primarily but for use to feed 00:05:02.400 --> 00:05:05.000 themselves their family unit their own NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:11.799 and only when that is done they might go to a marketplace and sell some NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:05:11.799 --> 00:05:14.000 Surplus NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:27.100 so this is a different logic says Scott which characterises much of the region that he is known for 00:05:27.100 --> 00:05:36.100 studying southeast Asia and where he draws his examples in that chapter where that we're reading for 00:05:36.100 --> 00:05:43.200 this week. Agricultural subsistence is not an economic enterprise looking to do business and ensure 00:05:43.200 --> 00:05:46.050 profits but agriculture of subsistence which is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:05:46.050 --> 00:05:50.550 limited exclusively to feeding those who practice it. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:05:50.550 --> 00:06:02.950 Scott says the profit motive in this way of life is in itself NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:06:02.950 --> 00:06:08.250 a secondary concern, these people are living NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:06:08.250 --> 00:06:21.700 often on the edge of hunger or have memories of hunger people in their family history have starved 00:06:21.700 --> 00:06:26.700 had to do certain things to avoid hunger NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:32.850 and their main concern NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:06:32.850 --> 00:06:40.900 is to maintain their subsistence levels rather than their profit NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:06:42.800 --> 00:06:51.700 so when given the choice for example and this leads to some practices that from the viewpoint 00:06:51.700 --> 00:07:04.200 of a standard expectation in economic thought about how people are prone to maximise their profits NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:07:04.200 --> 00:07:14.900 in this view these practices that Scott discusses seem paradoxical because when given the choice for 00:07:14.900 --> 00:07:26.000 example between a crop that has a higher average yield on average gives more of itself to the 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:27.250 peasant NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:32.000 and on the other hand one that has lower average yield NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:40.200 peasants can actually end up choosing the one that has the lowest average yield contradicting the 00:07:40.200 --> 00:07:51.400 standard expectations that they maximise profit maximise utility because the one that has a higher 00:07:51.400 --> 00:08:01.600 average yield you might dip below and be more risky dip below subsistence levels, leave them into a hunger 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:02.500 and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:04.650 certain years NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:08:04.650 --> 00:08:14.300 so they operate on the principle of safety first even the crops that might on average 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:20.750 yield less in terms of what they produce NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:08:20.750 --> 00:08:32.700 if they are still more secure less risky to dip below the subsistence levels the levels in which 00:08:32.700 --> 00:08:38.799 if you pass them you move into hunger you get into real trouble NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:45.100 then they are likely to go by the safety first principle NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:56.400 so this is particularly the case for those peasants says Scott who operate close to the subsistence 00:08:56.400 --> 00:09:04.050 minimum those cultivators are very low incomes little land and large families few outside opportunities 00:09:04.050 --> 00:09:12.600 they are prone to go by the safety first principle rather than maximising profit NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:09:13.100 --> 00:09:22.700 and it's got documents in some detail how they spread risk use different kinds of seeds variety 00:09:22.700 --> 00:09:28.400 choose varieties crop varieties that are stable that endure environmental catastrophe NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:40.700 rather than ones then that provide the highest income and even the highest average yield, because 00:09:40.700 --> 00:09:52.900 remember peasants are subject to the fortunes and the misfortunes of whether they seek to create a 00:09:52.900 --> 00:09:54.700 safety net NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:09:54.900 --> 00:10:02.750 also by relying on kin and friends by helping each other NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:10:02.750 --> 00:10:13.900 to be bailed out in bad years of harvest, and that in turn as we know from Mauss that in 00:10:13.900 --> 00:10:17.050 turn creates the expectation NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:10:17.050 --> 00:10:29.300 that they should help the ones that help them in the next season when he or she does not have enough 00:10:29.300 --> 00:10:44.300 to spare. So this is the moral economy for Scott, a system of subsistence peasants NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:10:45.100 --> 00:11:00.300 trying to sustain their subsistence levels and whereby kin and friends can be drawn on as resources 00:11:00.300 --> 00:11:03.300 in reciprocal networks. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:11:03.700 --> 00:11:15.250 Again this is a moral concern, patrons have moral responsibility to provide for their clients 00:11:15.250 --> 00:11:21.100 there's reciprocity involved obligation and moral expectation. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:24.500 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:35.700 What comes in to this system and leads people to revolt as we know from Thompson right this is 00:11:35.700 --> 00:11:44.000 the main insight that he provides us that there's a relationship between the moral sense of right and 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:47.300 wrong among NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:11:47.300 --> 00:11:54.900 poor people and the market practices NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:11:54.900 --> 00:11:57.300 that people NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:11:57.300 --> 00:12:06.900 follow and the way people act in a market, the way richer producers act in a market and the 00:12:06.900 --> 00:12:18.800 prices that they set. So what leads people to revoke what produces uprisings what is the political 00:12:18.800 --> 00:12:24.450 potential of the subsistence ethic that Scott writes about NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:12:24.450 --> 00:12:32.200 well his whole book and his whole career can be seen as an answer to that question NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:42.700 but basically peasants bebel when their subsistence levels are threatened and that seems quite 00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:51.000 fair point or quite straightforward but there's a there's a little bit deeper anthropological insight here. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 74% (MEDIUM) 00:12:51.300 --> 00:13:04.800 A peasant can be really upset or pissed off at say a 10% increase in rents on the land by landowners 00:13:04.800 --> 00:13:08.849 if it is a really really bad year for Harvest NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:13:08.849 --> 00:13:17.600 but on the other hand can be okay with a 30-40% increase in rents or taxes or what 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.700 have you in a very good year NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:13:20.700 --> 00:13:25.800 because the peasant NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:13:25.800 --> 00:13:36.800 Says James Scott asks how much is left when someone takes something away from them 00:13:36.800 --> 00:13:42.200 how much is left in their stock of food resources NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:13:42.400 --> 00:13:46.250 before he asked how much is actually taken NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:13:46.250 --> 00:13:52.500 he asks whether The Agrarian system respects its basic needs as a consumer NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:13:53.400 --> 00:13:59.600 so this is a moral economy for Scott's and in this is very much in line with and develop further 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:05.300 develop the ideas of EP Thompson the poor have an ingrained sense of right and wrong a social right 00:14:05.300 --> 00:14:15.000 to subsistence, it's not you know the moral economy is not an abstract notion of fairness NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:14:15.000 --> 00:14:23.700 but it's about a social right of subsistence and subsistence level varies according to historical 00:14:23.700 --> 00:14:27.700 environmental and cultural factors that follows this study NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:14:28.700 --> 00:14:35.400 so kind of at the minimum the moral economy for Scott is this expectation that at least it should 00:14:35.400 --> 00:14:42.600 not invade or ruin the subsistence reserves of these poor people and at most it can turn into a 00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:49.200 sense that it needs have a positive moral obligation to provide for the needs of the poor in times 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:57.200 of bad harvest, he writes about the moral economy as ethos shared by the people a standard of 00:14:57.200 --> 00:14:59.200 equity against which NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:03.800 the moral performance of elites might be judged. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:15:03.800 --> 00:15:08.600 Let's put a pin in that quote, we will come back to it. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:15:10.500 --> 00:15:19.500 This is what Thompson and Scott kind of lays out in terms of their understanding of the moral 00:15:19.500 --> 00:15:21.000 economy. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:26.349 Meyer NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:15:26.349 --> 00:15:35.650 does not use directly the term moral economy in her text that we have for this week, but her text 00:15:35.650 --> 00:15:43.700 nonetheless refers to this kind of moral anxiety over commodity circulation from different angle 00:15:43.700 --> 00:15:51.300 from the ethnographic perspective of Ghana and she explores the ways in which Pentecostals NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:15:51.300 --> 00:16:00.300 in Ghana seeks to defetishize commodities as part of an ongoing spiritual war so here 00:16:00.300 --> 00:16:14.100 we'll see again with my religion coming in as an element a domain that intersects with what we think 00:16:14.100 --> 00:16:20.500 of as the economic and how its impact is impossible to separate these domains. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:16:20.500 --> 00:16:29.000 now I don't want to kind of over determine how you read Meyer's text and it's a rather I think nice 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:36.700 ethnographic evocative piece so I won't go into the details of it but I want you to go to her as a 00:16:36.700 --> 00:16:43.849 place where you can look for some of these theoretical ideas that you've read in the syllabus okay 00:16:43.849 --> 00:16:49.600 so use that as a kind of a testing ground to see whether you can apply some of the ideas that you 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:50.400 have NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:57.300 that we have talked about in these lectures and in the seminars. Obviously moral economy you can say that 00:16:57.300 --> 00:17:03.699 what she's writing about is a kind of a dark side of the moral economy she claims that 00:17:03.699 --> 00:17:12.300 Pentecostal prayer in Ghana has emerged as a good answer kind to the anxiety of economic 00:17:12.300 --> 00:17:13.900 globalization. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:17:13.900 --> 00:17:19.349 There's a way of making commodities moral again NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:17:19.349 --> 00:17:24.800 so we're dealing with another kind of you could say another kind of moral economy one that critiques 00:17:24.800 --> 00:17:34.100 capitalist consumption critiques commodity fetishism we talked about in week 4 see if you can make 00:17:34.100 --> 00:17:37.200 some sense of that concept in this text NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:17:38.600 --> 00:17:45.100 and finally prayer for those of you who know the text already NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:17:45.600 --> 00:17:56.700 you remember that prayer is a form of you could say embedding re-embedding commodities back into 00:17:56.700 --> 00:18:03.200 a local universe of meaning in Ghana, it's a moral act it's a way to handle 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:04.800 globalisation NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:18:04.800 --> 00:18:10.500 so think of these prayer practices perhaps as forms of embedding NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:18:10.500 --> 00:18:17.600 related to the double movement concept and consider it in light of what we know about this gift 00:18:17.600 --> 00:18:27.200 exchange, all this is suggestion on how you can read 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:33.900 that text and use it as a training ground for your thinking. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:18:34.100 --> 00:18:38.900 So finally as I promised you NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:18:38.900 --> 00:18:49.500 we will also spend a bit of time thinking critically ourselves about the moral economy concept, I 00:18:49.500 --> 00:18:54.100 think there are two criticisms that you could level against this concept and it has provoked a lot 00:18:54.100 --> 00:19:07.500 of debate in anthropology and beyond. One does it rely on a kind of a high consensus among 00:19:07.500 --> 00:19:08.950 people NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:19:08.950 --> 00:19:20.900 is it overly static this idea that people share a moral sense of right and wrong, is it even perhaps 00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:35.700 open itself to or invite analysts and anthropologists to romanticise certain tendencies among the 00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:37.100 poor? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:19:40.100 --> 00:19:43.000 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:19:43.100 --> 00:19:52.000 second kind of criticism you could think and we're thinking out loud here does the moral economy 00:19:52.000 --> 00:20:01.700 concept tend to assume that we're moving away from moral dimensions of the economy that the 00:20:01.700 --> 00:20:11.000 economic wherever it enters is corrosive of morals it treats does it kind of treat ethical life as 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:12.250 one thing and then economics NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:20:12.250 --> 00:20:18.800 as a completely distinct sphere of action that operate on completely different principles NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:24.000 and does this crafts in the sense NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:20:25.800 --> 00:20:36.600 contribute to this thought idea that the economy and the economic is something completely separate 00:20:36.600 --> 00:20:39.000 distinct from the social? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:20:39.300 --> 00:20:52.200 I'll try to make the second question more concrete behind the moral 00:20:52.200 --> 00:21:03.000 economy. You'll notice in Scotts text and also Thompson that there's a tendency to portray 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:08.650 the moral economy as a fundamentally something located in the past NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:21:08.650 --> 00:21:16.100 and there's this tendency I would suggest also in some other readings to think that you know 00:21:16.100 --> 00:21:23.050 gift economies are stuff of the past now we're into this completely different terrain NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:21:23.050 --> 00:21:35.000 and he Thompson quotes I'll quote him here saying that in the 18th 00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:40.400 century in Britain and France the market remained the social as well as an economic nexus. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:21:40.600 --> 00:21:53.400 So that's makes sense okay this is enticing, the marketplace in these times was a place where people 00:21:53.400 --> 00:22:05.650 went to to resist and to rumour and gossip and feel that they had strength and riots NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:22:05.650 --> 00:22:14.699 and so it was a social as well as an economic consensus it remained that in these places, but what's 00:22:14.699 --> 00:22:26.500 perhaps assumed here or implied is that apart from these places you know in the time that followed 00:22:26.500 --> 00:22:32.500 the market is only an economic nexus. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:22:34.300 --> 00:22:42.350 So put a pin in that. Is the market today only an economic Nexus and is that implied by the 00:22:42.350 --> 00:22:45.100 concept of a moral economy? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 88% (HØY) 00:22:45.100 --> 00:22:52.500 Think of it in terms of Karen Ho's text remember all the way back to the first week 00:22:52.500 --> 00:22:55.400 the moral basis of market traders NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:22:57.900 --> 00:23:05.900 is there a kind of a reification of like a stern drawing of a boundary between the economic and 00:23:05.900 --> 00:23:18.300 the social in these texts about the moral economy that is problematic, and is there a sense that 00:23:18.300 --> 00:23:26.500 before the economy was moral now it has nothing to do with morals it used to be a social as well 00:23:26.500 --> 00:23:28.100 as an economic nexus NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:23:28.100 --> 00:23:34.600 but now it is only an economic nexus, is that implied in the text and to what extent is that a 00:23:34.600 --> 00:23:38.100 problem? to what extent is that NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:23:38.800 --> 00:23:47.500 realistic understanding of what economic life today is? is there such a thing as moral economy today? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:23:47.800 --> 00:23:57.100 and this is possibly the criticism I would level against moral economy concept or the way that it's 00:23:57.100 --> 00:24:03.700 been used at least that there is a danger inherent in this literature on the moral economy and the 00:24:03.700 --> 00:24:14.300 readings today of seeing this moral underpinning and the economic life as a battleground where 00:24:14.300 --> 00:24:18.500 people's notions of right and wrong play a part, there's a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:24:18.500 --> 00:24:31.000 Danger of seeing this as something that is placed in the past or something exotic faraway and not really 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:44.500 relevant today to the extent that it is a fair reading of Thompson, I would say that the notion of 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:46.700 the moral economy has NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:24:47.000 --> 00:24:57.800 A problem. Although it is tremendously useful for seeing certain things it comes with perhaps this 00:24:57.800 --> 00:25:06.300 little bit of a baggage that tends to to draw a line saying that today the economy has nothing to do 00:25:06.300 --> 00:25:16.700 with morals, but think for yourselves I mean is it the case that the moral economy is only a thing of 00:25:16.700 --> 00:25:18.400 the past? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:25:18.800 --> 00:25:24.000 A standard as James Scott says, a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:29.300 standard a certain standard of equity against which the moral performance of elites might be 00:25:29.300 --> 00:25:32.300 judged do we have such a thing today? NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:25:34.600 --> 00:25:37.300 of course. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:25:37.700 --> 00:25:47.800 I think to be fair Scott and Thompson would firmly agree economic life is still full of moral 00:25:47.800 --> 00:26:03.250 boundaries full of contestation overt as you see in certain movements to rein in the power of 00:26:03.250 --> 00:26:07.850 multinational corporations to profit from ruining the planet NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:26:07.850 --> 00:26:12.400 and so on but also implicitly NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:21.700 economic life is full of moral boundaries full of contestation, taxation is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:26:22.300 --> 00:26:32.650 an example we accept taxation which is a transfer of wealth from the rich to the 00:26:32.650 --> 00:26:34.550 collective NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:26:34.550 --> 00:26:42.900 it is a form of redistribution one of Polanyi's three principles remember and what is taxation if 00:26:42.900 --> 00:26:48.300 not the transfer of wealth based on a principle of right and wrong NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:26:48.300 --> 00:26:55.150 and it's something that's constantly being debated and fought over in modern society. 00:26:55.150 --> 00:27:04.700 Consider the question of diapers in Norwegian grocery stores there's diapers are deeply 00:27:04.700 --> 00:27:14.300 subsidized commodity in the Norwegian market because as a collective with the elected 00:27:14.300 --> 00:27:17.950 parliamentarians based on a notion of right and wrong we have NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:27:17.950 --> 00:27:23.500 come to the conclusion is that the price of diapers in Norwegian grocery stores Kiwi 00:27:23.500 --> 00:27:31.500 And REMA1000 is not to be determined solely by supply and demand people can't make as much 00:27:31.500 --> 00:27:42.100 money as they want from diapers there's a certain level of baseline a moral limit to making profits 00:27:42.100 --> 00:27:45.900 from diapers in Norwegian economy. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:27:45.900 --> 00:27:56.650 Alcohol similarly has subsidies or rather the reverse taxation heavily taxed because it's considered 00:27:56.650 --> 00:28:07.000 a threat to the social well-being of the population, farming subsidies NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:12.300 big topic in Norway and many many other countries NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:28:14.100 --> 00:28:29.500 saying that we as a society will support farmers or you can say the agricultural industry 00:28:29.500 --> 00:28:33.400 within the nation based on something else than NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:46.850 profit. We will make sure that it is possible for farmers to operate in a country because we do not 00:28:46.850 --> 00:28:52.800 trust or accept solely the logic of the market. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:28:53.600 --> 00:29:03.400 The labor market is also not a free market, there are massive amounts of laws from the United States 00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:18.449 to Social Democratic Norway even Bangladesh sweatshops or Chinese labor camps there are indeed laws 00:29:18.449 --> 00:29:23.750 that govern these labor markets. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:29:23.750 --> 00:29:36.700 Children cannot work in labor market and sell their labor different ages but still there 00:29:36.700 --> 00:29:43.500 are limits to how many hours people can work and how little you can pay them NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:29:43.500 --> 00:29:52.800 so there is no such thing indeed as a free market. I think if anyone can show me that thing I'll be 00:29:53.400 --> 00:30:03.250 intrigued there is no such thing as a free market there are always limits, laws, norms, expectations 00:30:03.250 --> 00:30:05.500 that come into play. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:30:07.100 --> 00:30:17.400 You know stockbrokers at Wall Street there's lots of rules governing the so-called 00:30:17.400 --> 00:30:28.699 free market of Wall Street you cannot send your eight-year-old child to trade stocks on 00:30:28.699 --> 00:30:35.000 Wall Street day in and day out because that's illegal NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:45.850 so where the the moral boundaries are drawn and how economic life is shaped is of course a battle 00:30:45.850 --> 00:30:55.400 where notions of right and wrong remain deeply important. This is a 00:30:55.400 --> 00:31:03.700 debate that keeps going endlessly, latest perhaps in the last few years we have had this debate 00:31:03.700 --> 00:31:04.900 and critique NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:31:04.900 --> 00:31:09.000 of course of corporate social responsibility. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 75% (MEDIUM) 00:31:09.900 --> 00:31:20.400 Nonetheless I want you to reflect yourselves on the question. Even 00:31:20.400 --> 00:31:26.500 though we have examples of the moral economy today we I encourage you all 00:31:26.500 --> 00:31:33.800 to develop this further and think about similarities and differences but nonetheless is 00:31:33.800 --> 00:31:40.650 there something fundamentally qualitatively different from the society that EP Thompson NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:31:40.650 --> 00:31:42.650 describes NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:31:42.650 --> 00:31:46.300 and the world we live in today NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:31:47.400 --> 00:31:59.500 that is a difficult question and one that I like to leave you to think about and discuss NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:32:00.800 --> 00:32:06.800 because that's the point of all this I mean this lectures this course is to get your own thinking 00:32:06.800 --> 00:32:15.400 going, to get your own ideas and reasoning going. Not to just accept mine. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:32:15.500 --> 00:32:22.699 Next week we are going to talk about a topic that has been lingering in much of our readings so far 00:32:22.699 --> 00:32:33.500 but we have not dealt with directly which is the question of value and 00:32:33.500 --> 00:32:41.000 this is another way of raising some of these issues that we've been talking about again and again 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.200 for the last weeks. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:32:43.200 --> 00:32:54.900 so until next week enjoy your seminars and readings, enjoy your discussions and feel free to let me 00:32:54.900 --> 00:33:07.300 know also if things are working more or less to the extent that you would like and yeah feel free to 00:33:07.300 --> 00:33:12.700 get in touch tell me about the seminars tell me about the lectures NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:33:12.700 --> 00:33:23.100 and we'll try to adjust as we go along, but until then until I hear from you or until I 00:33:23.100 --> 00:33:33.750 broadcast the new lecture I hope you'll have a good and interesting week as students in this country 00:33:33.750 --> 00:33:40.000 that we are living in Norway have a good one see you soon bye bye.