The age of responsibilization: on market-embedded morality
TL;DR: This paper argued that contemporary tendencies to economize public domains and methods of government also produce tendencies to moralize markets in general and business enterprises in particular, and that the moralization of markets further sustains, rather than undermines, neo-liberal governmentalities and vision of civil society, citizenship and responsible social action.
Abstract: This article explores emerging discursive formations concerning the relationship of business and morality. It suggests that contemporary tendencies to economize public domains and methods of government also dialectically produce tendencies to moralize markets in general and business enterprises in particular. The article invokes the concept of ‘responsibilization’ as means of accounting for the epistemological and practical consequences of such processes. Looking at the underlying ‘market rationality’ of governance, and critically examining the notion of ‘corporate social responsibility’, it concludes that the moralization of markets further sustains, rather than undermining, neo-liberal governmentalities and neo-liberal visions of civil society, citizenship and responsible social action.
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01 Jan 1978
TL;DR: One in a while, every twenty years perhaps, a book appears that makes one see a whole area of human experience in a new light as mentioned in this paper, and the new insights are sp obvious that one cannot understand how one could have missed them before.
Abstract: One in a while, every twenty years perhaps, a book appears that makes one see a whole area of human experience in a new light. Once pointed out, the new insights are sp obvious that one cannot understand how one could have missed them before. In the broad area of the political economy of western society, J.A. Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943) was one such book. So, with all its faults, was J.K. Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1957). Fred Hirsch's Social Limits to Growth (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1977) is another.
870 citations
TL;DR: Vogel as mentioned in this paper argues that there is no business case that can be generalized to all firms per se, but there is a political case for broadening what we mean by that much-used term.
Abstract: The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility. By David Vogel. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute, 2005. 222p. $28.95.Is there a “market for virtue”? If so, what can it do, and what can it not do to improve our world? In his incisive new book, David Vogel takes aim at these questions and the now-fashionable claim that there is a business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR). He concludes that there is no business case that can be generalized to all firms per se, but there is a political case for broadening what we mean by that much-used term.
696 citations
TL;DR: Reflection is a dangerous thing; it is all too easy to slip from careful re-assessment and analysis into nostalgia and "golden ageism" as mentioned in this paper, although in a period of austerity that slippage might be very...
Abstract: Reflection is a dangerous thing; it is all too easy to slip from careful re-assessment and analysis into nostalgia and ‘golden ageism’, although in a period of austerity that slippage might be very...
565 citations
Cites background from "The age of responsibilization: on m..."
...…incoherent, unstable and even contradictory set of practices that are organized around a certain imagination of the “market” as a basis for the universalisation of market-based social relations, with the corresponding penetration in almost every single aspect of our lives’ (Shamir, 2008, p. 3)....
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TL;DR: This study studies how different social movement and industry-driven standards organizations compete as well as collaborate over governance in transnational arenas and explains the dynamics of competing and collaborating non-state actors in constituting a standards market.
Abstract: The growing number of voluntary standards for governing transnational arenas is presenting standards organizations with a problem. While claiming that they are pursuing shared, overarching objectives, at the same time they are promoting their own respective standards that are increasingly similar. By developing the notion of ‘standards markets’, this paper examines this tension and studies how different social movement and industry-driven standards organizations compete as well as collaborate over governance in transnational arenas. Based on an in-depth case study of sustainability standards in the global coffee industry, we find that the ongoing co-existence of multiple standards is being promoted by the interplay between two countervailing mechanisms: convergence and differentiation. In conjunction, these mechanisms are enabling the emergence and persistence of a market for standards through what we describe as meta-standardization of sustainable practices. Meta-standardization leads to convergence at t...
382 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce four processes of consumer responsibilization that, together, comprise the P.A.T. routine (personalization, authorization, capabilization, and transformation).
Abstract: Responsible consumption conventionally stems from an increased awareness of the impact of consumption decisions on the environment, on consumer health, and on society in general. We theorize the influence of moralistic governance regimes on consumer subjectivity to make the opposite case: responsible consumption requires the active creation and management of consumers as moral subjects. Building on the sociology of governmentality, we introduce four processes of consumer responsibilization that, together, comprise the P.A.C.T. routine (personalization, authorization, capabilization, and transformation). After that, we draw on a longitudinal analysis of problem-solving initiatives at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to explore the role of P.A.C.T. in the creation of four, now commonplace, responsible consumer subjects: the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer, the green consumer, the health-conscious consumer, and the financially literate consumer. Our analysis informs extant macro-level theorizations of market and consumption systems. We also contribute to prior accounts of responsibilization, marketplace mythologies, consumer subjectivity, and transformative consumer research.
357 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The Neoliberal State and Neoliberalism with 'Chinese Characteristics' as mentioned in this paper is an example of the Neoliberal state in the context of Chinese characteristics of Chinese people and its relationship with Chinese culture.
Abstract: Introduction 1 Freedom's Just Another Word 2 The Construction of Consent 3 The Neoliberal State 4 Uneven Geographical Developments 5 Neoliberalism with 'Chinese Characteristics' 6 Neoliberalism on Trial 7 Freedom's Prospect Notes Bibliography Index
10,062 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the difficulty of being an ANT and the difficulties of tracing the social networks of a social network and how to re-trace the social network.
Abstract: Introduction: How to Resume the Task of Tracing Associations PART I: HOW TO DEPLOY CONTROVERSIES ABOUT THE SOCIAL WORLD 1 Learning to Feed from Controversies 2 First Source of Uncertainty: No Group, Only Group Formation 3 Second Source of Uncertainty: Action is Overtaken 4 Third Source of Uncertainty: Objects Too Have Agency 5 Fourth Source of Uncertainty: Matters of Fact vs Matters of Concern 6 Fifth Source of Uncertainty: Writing Down Risky Accounts 7 On the Difficulty of Being an ANT - An Interlude in Form of a Dialog PART II: HOW TO RENDER ASSOCIATIONS TRACEABLE AGAIN 8 Why is it So Difficult to Trace the Social? 9 How to Keep the Social Flat 10 First Move: Localizing the Global 11 Second Move: Redistributing the Local 12 Third Move: Connecting Sites 13 Conclusion: From Society to Collective - Can the Social be Reassembled?
9,680 citations
Book•
28 Mar 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the key to the institutional system of the 19 century lay in the laws governing market economy, which was the fount and matrix of the system was the self-regulating market, and it was this innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization.
Abstract: But the fount and matrix of the system was the self-regulating market. It was this innovation which gave rise to a specific civilization. The gold standard was merely an attempt to extend the domestic market system to the international field; the balance of power system was a superstructure erected upon and, partly, worked through the gold standard; the liberal state was itself a creation of the self-regulating market. The key to the institutional system of the 19 century lay in the laws governing market economy. (p. 3).
8,514 citations
"The age of responsibilization: on m..." refers background in this paper
...The political economy of Adam Smith, in particular, constructed an economic sphere with its own laws, its own logic of operation, its own conception of the human subject and with an unprecedented freedom to cut itself loose from the complex web of social institutions into which economic relations were heretofore tightly woven (Polanyi, 1944)....
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...Clearly, this is a problematic distinction as there are many cross-over approaches from classic works such as those of Polanyi (1944), Weber (1978 [1914]), Hirsch (1976) and Sen (1987) to Carvalho and Rodrigues (2006) and Roberts (2003)....
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...…constructed an economic sphere with its own laws, its own logic of operation, its own conception of the human subject and with an unprecedented freedom to cut itself loose from the complex web of social institutions into which economic relations were heretofore tightly woven (Polanyi, 1944)....
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...externalities generated by unregulated and under-regulated economic practices (Polanyi, 1944)....
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...It was the welfare state, in short, that took on the management, control or elimination of social externalities generated by unregulated and under-regulated economic practices (Polanyi, 1944)....
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8,455 citations
"The age of responsibilization: on m..." refers background in this paper
...…theorizing neo-liberalism (e.g. Ritzer, 1996; Sassen, 1996; Jessop, 1997; Giddens, 1998; Bourdieu, 1999; Erickson, Dean, & Doyle 2000; Lemke, 2001; Harvey, 2005; Jayasuriya, 2005), the moralization of the market has so far received less scholarly attention at the level of social theory (cf.…...
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TL;DR: This article conducted a meta-analysis of 52 studies and found that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association.
Abstract: Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little generalizable knowledge about CSP and CFP is built on shaky grounds. Providing a methodologically more rigorous review than previous efforts, we conduct a meta-analysis of 52 studies (which represent the population of prior quantitative inquiry) yielding a total sample size of 33,878 observations. The meta-analytic findings suggest that corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off, although the operationalizations of CSP and CFP also moderate the positive association. For example, CSP appears to be more highly correlated with accounting-based measures of CFP than with market-based ...
6,493 citations