Moral economy at the crossroads of history and social science: A roundtable with Dr Melissa Beresford, Professor Andrew Sayer and Professor Neville Kirk, chaired by Professor Robert McMaster
三位学者从不同学科视角探讨道德经济概念，分析其如何帮助理解社区正义、经济实践及人类面对不确定未来的行动，适合关注道德经济、社会史和人类学的读者。
Neville Kirk (social and labour history) were invited to answer the question: What for you, offers a valuable way of approaching moral economy?Sayer's moral economy (2000, 2007), grounded in neo-Aristotelian moral philosophy, characterises people as vulnerable, dependent on others, and having the ability to flourish or suffer (Sayer, 2011).Sayer argues moral dispositions are formed by social relationships that enable or constrain attachments and connection.In this way, the economic and cultural context builds a moral economy that 'is deemed appropriate and acceptable' (Sayer, 2011: 129).Beresford's moral economy (Beresford et al., 2023) invokes concepts from both Thompson and Scott, to explore how communities mobilise notions of justice.Based on moral economies of water, Beresford's research traces the foundations of moral economy concepts, to capture shared understandings of justice, normative economic practices and social pressure mechanisms.Exploring 'basic states' of how moral economies cycle through balanced struggle, intensified reaction, mass revolt, collapse and dissolution, Beresford's economic anthropology highlights the actions of communities facing uncertain futures (Beresford et al., 2023).This helps us understand how people develop the resources they need for a good life, differentiating between moral economy leaning on anthropology, with a focus on deep human history, over the last ten thousand years, and historical and sociological accounts.Kirk's approach, alternatively, is socially rooted in firsthand experience of the Thompson's and genesis of his moral economy.Though Kirk deployed a Thompsonian approach to 'moral economy' in his 2007 Custom and Conflict in the Land of the Gael: Ballachulish, 1900Ballachulish, -1910, here he provides contextualisation to the special issue, clarifying the object of Thompson's analysis, uncovering the nature of conflict between custom and tradition against a backdrop of the market economy and modernisation.He urges us to reevaluate and celebrate Thompson by avoiding loose employment of descriptive and derogatory terms to describe plebeian movements.The three voices demonstrate an emancipatory, reflective, and outward looking body of ideas at the crossroads of history and the social sciences.Each, in their own way, defend their disciplinary positions through reflecting on Thompsonian approaches to moral economy research, but also demonstrate significant cross-disciplinary customs in common.These communalities take account of the past, the present, and embody belief in the potential of moral economic concepts for understanding forms of economic and industrial democracy, emerging across, but not limited to, workplaces, communities and ecological and environmental crises.