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Journal ArticleDOI

The moral economy of grades and standards

01 Jul 2000-Journal of Rural Studies (Pergamon)-Vol. 16, Iss: 3, pp 273-283
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that grades and standards are part of the moral economy of the modern world, and that they both set norms for behavior and standardize (create uniformity).
About: This article is published in Journal of Rural Studies.The article was published on 2000-07-01. It has received 313 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Generally Accepted Auditing Standards & Standardization.
Citations
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Book
01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: In Sorting Things Out, Bowker and Star as mentioned in this paper explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world and examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary.
Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

4,480 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: Veblen's analysis of the U.S. economy has been claimed and rejected both by sociologists and economists as being one of theirs as mentioned in this paper, but it has enduring value today.
Abstract: Veblen has been claimed and rejected both by sociologists and economists as being one of theirs. He enriched and attacked both disciplines, as he did so many others: philosophy, history, social psychology, politics, and linguistics. Because he took all knowledge as necessary and relevant to adequate understanding, Veblen was a holistic analyst of the social process. First published in 1904, this classic analysis of the U.S. economy has enduring value today. In it, Veblen posited a theory of business fluctuations and economic growth which included chronic depression and inflation. He predicted the socioeconomic changes that would occur as a result: militarism, imperialism, fascism, consumerism, and the development of the mass media as well as the corporate bureaucracy. Douglas Dowd's introduction places the volume within the traditions of both macroeconomics and microeconomics, tracing Veblen's place among social thinkers, and the place of this volume in the body of his work.

1,047 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that global value chains are becoming increasingly "buyer-driven" even though they are characterized by "hands-off" forms of co-ordination between "lead firms" and their immediate suppliers.
Abstract: Convention theory helps refine our understanding of the governance of global value chains through its analysis of ‘quality’. In this article, it is argued that global value chains are becoming increasingly ‘buyer-driven’, even though they are characterized by ‘hands-off’ forms of co-ordination between ‘lead firms’ and their immediate suppliers. This is because lead firms have been able to embed complex quality information into widely accepted standards and codification and certification procedures. As suggested by convention theory, their success in doing so has depended on defining and managing value chain-specific quality attributes that are attuned to broader narratives about quality that circulate within society more generally.

805 citations


Cites background from "The moral economy of grades and sta..."

  • ...…at using convention theory to enrich other approaches have been carried out in relation to global value chains (Daviron and Gibbon 2002; Daviron and Ponte forthcoming) and agro-food networks (Barham 2002; Busch 2000; Busch and Tanaka 1996; Freidberg 2003; Murdoch and Miele 1999; Murdoch et al ....

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Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1982
TL;DR: The central unifying theme in the Manuscripts is the alienation of labour under capitalist conditions of private ownership and its transcendence and abolition under communism as discussed by the authors, which is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature.
Abstract: The central unifying theme in the Manuscripts is the alienation of labour under capitalist conditions of private ownership and its transcendence and abolition under communism. The doctrine of total emancipation which, as I have argued, was crucial in enabling Marx to assimilate ‘class’ and the ‘division of labour’ in his work is much more clearly articulated here and eloquently expressed. Communism, Marx argues, is ‘the positive transcendence of all estrangement’; the abolition of private property, communism: is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature — the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and knows itself to be this solution.27 The vision of communism Marx unfolds in the Manuscripts derives much of its force from his remarkable analysis of the alienation of labour and is clearly underpinned by a preconception of truly human, free productive activity. Man’s productive interchange with nature is in fact taken as the defining characteristic of the species: ‘the productive life is the life of the species’; and Marx is careful to point out that while an animal can also be said to engage in production it ‘only produces what it immediately needs for itself or its young’.

776 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Reviewing the relevance of standards and standardization in diverse theoretical traditions and sociological subfields, it is called for careful empirical analysis of the specific and unintended consequences of different sorts of standards operating in distinct social domains.
Abstract: Standards and standardization aim to render the world equivalent across cultures, time, and geography. Standards are ubiquitous but underappreciated tools for regulating and organizing social life in modernity, and they lurk in the background of many sociological works. Reviewing the relevance of standards and standardization in diverse theoretical traditions and sociological subfields, we point to the emergence and institutionalization of standards, the difficulties of making standards work, resistance to standardization, and the multiple outcomes of standards. Rather than associating standardization with totalizing narratives of globalization or dehumanization, we call for careful empirical analysis of the specific and unintended consequences of different sorts of standards operating in distinct social domains.

721 citations


Cites background from "The moral economy of grades and sta..."

  • ...Marx’s analysis of capitalism examined the standardization of conditions for economic activity in a capitalist market, as well as the spread of the commodity as a standard mode of economic exchange (Marx 1867 [1977]; see also Busch 2000)....

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  • ...Yet it is hard to see how standards can be purely good while standardization is wholly bad, given that standardization presumes the existence of standards, whereas standards cannot endure with any potency unless they are standardized across social domains (Busch 2000)....

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  • ...To standardize transportation is inevitably to standardize the perceptions and tastes of travelers (Schivelbusch 1977); to standardize policies is to standardize those administered by them (Busch 2000)....

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References
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01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: Collins and Yearley as discussed by the authors argue that there is no fundamental reason to switch to other frames of reference and there is stil l less reason to let "bloody foreigners" dabble in a field where the British have been firmly in command for so many decades.
Abstract: Harry Collins and Steve Yearley {from now on C&Y) âre sâtisfied with the state of social studies of science. Most o{ the problems have been solved, important discoveries have been made, sociology is firm enough on its feet to study the natural sciences. Thus, according to them, there is no fundamental reason to switch to other frames of reference-and there is stil l less reâson to let "bloody foreigners" dabble in a field where the British have been firmly in command for so mâny yeârs. Wherever we go, C&Y have already been there, have given satisfactory explanations, have developed an adequate methodology, and have solved the empirical problems. Even if they recognize that there might be some residual difficulties-the problems of reflexivity, thât of symmetry the potential conflict between relativism and social realism-their solution is to shun these intellectual traps by a process of alternation, another name for blithe ignorance, and an appeal to common sense and professional

443 citations


"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper

  • ...On the one hand, the social studies of science has been much in#uenced through the Actor Network Theory developed by Latour (1987, 1993) and Callon (Callon, 1991; Callon and Latour, 1992; Callon et al., 1986) among others (e.g., Law, 1994)....

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  • ...On the one hand, the social studies of science has been much in#uenced through the Actor Network Theory developed by Latour (1987, 1993) and Callon (Callon, 1991; Callon and Latour, 1992; Callon et al., 1986) among others (e....

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Book
13 Oct 1987
TL;DR: The authors examines the social and political significance of the natural sciences through a detailed and original account of science as an interpretive social practice, focusing on the relationship between science and social justice.
Abstract: This lucidly written book examines the social and political significance of the natural sciences through a detailed and original account of science as an interpretive social practice.

420 citations


"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The result was that agricultural practice was forced to become more tightly coupled and arti"cially complex, since the natural complexity that had allowed the system to be more loosely coupled had been destroyed in order to apply the knowledge developed in experimental studies (Rouse, 1987, p. 233)....

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  • ...…earlier work of Edmund Stone: Mathematical Instruments are the means by which those noble sciences, geometry and philosophy, are render'd 8As both Rouse (1987) and Latour (1987) have noted, the illusion of universality is constructed by a set of speci"c events and actions that are always local…...

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Book
01 Sep 1987
TL;DR: The industrial appropriation of the rural production process the industrial substitution of the urban product new directions in appropriationism and substitutionism - the emerging bio-industries rural social structures.
Abstract: The industrial appropriation of the rural production process the industrial substitution of the rural product new directions in appropriationism and substitutionism - the emerging bio-industries rural social structures.

386 citations


"The moral economy of grades and sta..." refers background in this paper

  • ...The literature on the contemporary transformations of agriculture is voluminous (e.g., Bonanno et al., 1994; Busch et al., 1991; Buttel and Newby, 1980; Friedland et al., 1991; Goodman et al., 1987; Goodman and Watts, 1997; McMichael, 1995)....

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Book
01 Jan 1960

348 citations

Book
21 Apr 1977

347 citations