arnold - rethinking moral economy

8/12/2019 Arnold - Rethinking Moral Economy

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/arnold-rethinking-moral-economy 1/12

Rethinking Moral Economy

Author(s): Thomas Clay ArnoldSource: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 95, No. 1 (Mar., 2001), pp. 85-95Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3117630 .

Accessed: 01/01/2014 05:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

American Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

The American Political Science Review.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=apsa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3117630?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


http://www.jstor.org/stable/3117630?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=apsa



AmericanPoliticalScienceReview Vol. 95, No. 1 March2001

RethinkingoralconomyTHOMAS CLAYARNOLD Emporia State University

establishthreecloselyrelatedclaims. Thefirst two are interpretive,he thirdtheoretical. 1) Theprevailing onceptionof moraleconomy n politicalscience,presupposed y opponentsas wellasadvocates, ests ooheavily n thedistinction etween onmarket ndmarket-basedocieties. 2) The

prevailing onception f moraleconomy educes o theundulynarrow laim thateconomic ncorporation

of a nonmarket eople is the basis or themoral ndignationhat leadsto resistance nd rebellion. 3)Reconceptualizing oral economyin termsof social goods revealsadditionalgrounds or politicallysignificantmoral ndignation ndpermitsmoral-economicolitical analysisof a larger et of casesandphenomena.WaterpoliticsnthearidAmericanWestllustratehepowerofa conception fmoraleconomybasedon socialgoods.

oliticalscientistsdebateas intenselyas ever theidea of a moral economy,whichcontainsboth

descriptiveand prescriptiveelements. The de-

scriptiveelement reflects the contributions f, amongothers, anthropologists nd refers to the various,es-

sentially noneconomic norms and obligations (e.g.,reciprocity) hat mediate the centralsocial, political,and/oreconomic relationsof a given (almost alwayspre- or nonmarket)people. The prescriptive lementrefers to moral economy's status and value as aninstrument or social and political analysis.Whetherused to evaluate the distinctive social and politicalfeaturesof varioussystemsof exchange Booth 1993a;Dalton 1961;Polanyi1957) or to explaininsurgencyand rebellion (Gosner 1992; Scott 1976;Thompson1971),the idea of a moraleconomy s a claimabouttheconductof inquiry, f what to studyand how. Formanypolitical scientists committedto alternative orms of

inquiry,moral economy easily means above all else

spiriteddiscussionabout themostcrucialquestionsofmethod and interpretation Booth 1993b,953).Parties to this debate in political science differ

sharplyover thevalueof whatFrerejohn 1991,301,n.

1) hasfruitfully escribedas theethnographictartingpoint, the assertion,embracedby moraleconomists,that theproperplace to begin social analysis s withthe meanings embedded in the social practices in

question, hatsocialpractices form he basis for theidentificationof actorsand choices. Describedmore

fullybelow, the debateover moral-economic oliticalsciencereflects npartmoraleconomists'opposition othe assumptionsand approachesof rational-choiceformsof

inquiry,hatis to

say,economic

assumptionsabout humanbehaviorapplied in settings in which,moraleconomistsargue, narrowly elf-interestedcal-culationsof gainor efficiency re absentor secondary.

Curiously,he spiriteddebate npoliticalsciencehasnot featured the conceptitself. In starkcontrastwiththe disputesover the value of moral-economic oliticalscience, the question of what constitutes a moral

economy drawslittle attention or controversy.Yet,moral-economic oliticalscience is onlyas effectiveastheconceptof moraleconomyon which t rests.Silenceon this centralissue begs two questions.Whatis theunderlying onceptionof moraleconomypresupposedby the parties to the dispute?More important, s itadequate?The next two sectionsreconstructand cri-tique the prevailingbut largelyunquestionedconcep-tionof moraleconomy npolitical cience.Reconstruc-tion and critiqueestablish wo points:The traditional

conceptionof moraleconomyin politicalscience (1)reststoo heavilyon the distinctionbetweennonmarketand market-based ocieties and (2) reduces to theundulynarrowclaim that economic ncorporation f anonmarketpeople is the basis for the moralindigna-tionthat leads to resistanceandrebellion.Theremain-

ing two sectionsdevelopa more effectiveconception.Combiningoverlooked aspects of early moral-eco-nomicanalysiswithinsightsdrawn romrecentstudies

of communityand collectiveaction,I recastthe con-cept in lightof the constitutive, ommunal,and,espe-cially,nestedpropertiesof socialgoods.

A conceptionof moral economy based on social

goods capturesthe groundsfor politicallysignificantmoral indignationmore preciselythan does the pre-vailing view. It demonstratesthat the grounds for

politically ignificantmoral ndignationdo not lie onlyor even predominantly t the level of clashingecono-mies or cultures.They ie insteadatthe level of specificsocial goods, at the intersection of nested sets ofmeaning and value called into question by equallyspecificchanges n circumstance.

Myrevision also refines

analysis.Given the nestedpropertiesof social goods, instances of resistancetowhat traditionalmoral economists often describe ascommodificationeed not be viewedasresistance o allforms or degreesof commodity xchange,even of thegood in question.Moreover,by focusingon specificsocial goods, rather than on overarchingeconomicsystems,I account for politicallysignificant althoughnot necessarilyrebellious) moral economies wheretraditionalmoraleconomistswould eastexpectto findthem:withinmodem, market-structuredommunitiesand societies.Waterpolitics nthearidAmericanWestillustrate hepowersof a conceptionof moraleconomybased on socialgoods.

ThomasClay Arnold is Associate Professorof PoliticalScience,EmporiaStateUniversity,Emporia,KS66801-5087.

The author s deeply ndebted o KimArnold,MichaelHandley,Phil Kelly, Chris Phillips, Greg Schneider,and the anonymousreviewersor theirmanyhelpfulcomments.

85

This content downloaded from 128.135.12.127 on Wed, 1 Jan 2014 05:06:02 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions






RethinkingMoralEconomy March2001

RECONSTRUCTION

The traditionalnotion of moraleconomyin politicalscience reflects the seminal works of Karl Polanyi(1957) and E. P. Thompson(1971). It features the

extraordinary henomenonof a poor,premarketpeo-ple contestingthe dictatesof a much more moderneconomic order.' Polanyi contributes the importantdistinctionbetweenembeddedandautonomous con-omies.Embedded, ypicallyancientor primitive con-omies submergeproductionand exchange o the pur-poses and practices of far more significantsocial,political,or religious nstitutions.Autonomousecono-mies functiondifferently. roduction ndexchangearemuch more significant, ncreasinglyserve economic

ends, and operate accordingto the constraintsof

pervasive, impersonalmarkets. Autonomous econo-mies definethe modernera.

Thompsoncontributes everal hings.Beyondpopu-larizing he term moraleconomy,he explainshowand

whythe transition rom an embeddedeconomyto anautonomousmarketgeneratedsocialand

politicalun-

rest,evensustainedorganized iolence.Drawingon his

studyof eighteenth-century nglish oodriots,Thomp-son (1971,78, 79) finds the delicate issue of tradi-tionalsocial normsandreciprocitiesunableto accom-modate the cash-nexus of the emerging marketorder.The clash was often traumatic.Those most atthe mercyof the emergingorderregarded he transi-tion as unjust.Moral outrageand direct action fol-lowed.Thompson'smostsignificant ontributions hisunderstated onceptof a moraleconomy,whichpolit-ical scientistsdo not incorporate sfullyastheyshould.

Generalizing rom the particularsof the food riots,Thompson conceives moral economy as a popularconsensus about what distinguishes egitimate fromillegitimatepractices,a consensusrooted in the pastand capableof inspiringaction (pp. 78-9, 108, 112,131-6).

Reflecting the discipline's longstandingdesire toaccount for peasant and Third World insurrections

(BatesandCurry1992;Lichbach1994),the prevailingconcept in political science emphasizesconflict andresistance.Thisemphasis peaksfar moreto a patternof behavior ratherthan, as Thompsoninstructs, henatureof and sourcesfor communalnotions of legiti-macy. Illustrationsabound. Consider Scott's (1976)analysisof peasantrebellionsin early-twentieth-cen-

turyBurmaand Vietnam. Peasantsrebelled,he con-cludes,out of their desire to resist intensifyingEuro-pean colonialismand to restore ancientpeasantwaysandrights.Eric Wolf(1969,276) explainspeasantwarsin Cuba,Russia,China,Mexico,andAlgeria n similar

terms,emphasizinghepredatory atureandculturallydisruptive ffectsof NorthAtlanticCapitalism.

This pattern of behavior has even been used to

reinterpretaspectsof U.S. social andpoliticalhistory,in particularhe actionsof nineteenth-century remar-ket farmersn largeportionsof Georgia,Missouri,andTexas. Convincedthat their communitiesand atten-dant habitsof mutuality were threatenedby a grow-

ing and impersonalmarket,yeomanfarmersresortedto, among other things, populist revolt and social

banditry(Hahn 1983, 53; see also McMath 1985;Thelen 1986). Resistanceto economicincorporationalsoemerges nStrickland's1985)studyof newly reedblacks n the rice-plantingectionsof the South Caro-linaLowCountry.nthisinstance,LowCountry lacks

jealouslyretained he independenceandunsupervisedtime long afforded lavesbythe traditionalmannerofrice cultivation taskwork argely outof the master's

eye )despite postwareffortsbyenterprisingwhites to

regulate aborrationally n the basis of time,supervi-sion, and wages.2Blacksresistedthe emergingorder

simply by refusingto

participate.Their subsistence

skillsand,unlikeother sectionsof theSouth, herefugeof theirwell-established, xtended families sustainedthe resistance.Judging rom the literature,resistanceto economic ncorporations indeed thepreferred, nd

typically he only,recognizedpattern.The prevailing onceptionof moraleconomy s also

a response to a prominent issue in contemporarypoliticalthought, thecontroversy ver 'the economic

approacho humanbehavior,' ver rationalchoice andrelated heories,andespeciallyver heunderstandingfnonmarket societies (Booth 1994, 653, emphasisadded).Thisdisputedominates he literature, ender-

ingmoraleconomymore a labelfor the debatethana

category ororganizing xperience.Although heargu-ments for and especiallyagainstmoral-economicinesof inquirydo not debate the concept per se, they are

revealing.Summarizedbelow, they confirmthe nar-rowness of the prevailingview and point, if onlyindirectly, o a compellingalternative.

Traditionalmoral economistsmaintain hat,insofaras the economicapproachprivileges he self-interestedindividual,who narrowlybut rationallycalculatesonthe basisof unforgiving ompetitionandthe principleof utilitymaximization,t cannotfruitfully ngagethe

many nstances n which economicbehavior s embed-ded in noneconomic institutions and values. Tradi-

tional moral economistsarguethatscholarsgainlittle,if anything,by analyzing ehavior n termsof what theactors themselveswould recognizeas strangeor im-moral, f even comprehensible. cott (1976,166) con-cludes that a strictly conomicapproachoverlooks hemore tellingsociocultural omponentsof behavior; t

1 This notion is found throughout the literature, among early advo-cates as well as recent critics. Scott (1976) is the leading example of

early moral-economic analysis in political science. More recentstudies include Posusney 1993 and Heilke 1997. Among contempo-rary critics are Bates and Curry (1992) and Booth (1994), whoseworks are second-order analyses of the topic, although both rely in

part on the authors' earlier studies of premarket societies, African

and ancient Greek in particular.

2 The real social and cultural significance of the task system lay inthe fact that a slave could finish the day's work at his or her ownchosen rate. ... Slaveswho worked quicklyoften assisted otherswhowere slower, thereby making task labor a collective experi-ence.... Task work thus helped to fashion a moral economy that

prized the virtues of independence, self-determination, and personalachievement, while encouraging collective responsibility for the

completion of assignments (Strickland 1985, 145).

86







AmericanPoliticalScience Review Vol. 95, No. 1

misses the centralfact that the peasant s born into a

societyand culturethat providehim a fund of moralvalues,a set of concretesocialrelationships, patternof expectationsabout the behaviorof others, and asense of how those in his culture have proceededtosimilargoals in the past.

In thetraditional iew,the moreappropriatempha-sis is on cultural ormsandvalues,onwhatHahn(1983,

6, 85) describesas the web of social life, meaningideas about justice, independence,obligation,andother aspects of social and political life, rooted in

specificrelationshipsand refracted hroughhistorical

experiences. Scott (1976, 167) agrees: Woven ntothe tissue of peasantbehavior, hen,whether n normallocal routinesor in the violenceof an uprising, s thestructure f a sharedmoraluniverse,a commonnotionof what is just.It is this moralheritage hat,in peasantrevolts,selects certaintargetsratherthanothers,cer-tain forms ratherthan others, and that makespossi-ble.. . action born of moral outrage. The abstract,atomistic,andnarrowly tilitarian ssumptions f eco-nomic analysissimplywill not do. Instead, analysismustbe phenomenological, apableof comprehendingthe culturalself-understandingsf the actors them-selves,that is, theirsense of propriety, ustice,obliga-tion, and the like (Scott 1976, 3, 4).3

Responsesto these arguments arybut fall intooneof threecategories.The mostcommon s the claimthatthe norms and reciprocitiesof anygiven moralecon-

omy are reducible to and best explained n terms ofself-interested,politicaleconomy.Popkin (1979, 18),for instance,in a studyof Vietnamesepeasantsthat

overlapsScott's,arguesthat byapplying heoriesofindividualdecision-makingo villages,we canbeginto

developa deductiveunderstanding f peasantinstitu-

tions andmove the analysisbackone step to the levelof the individual.By usingthe conceptsof individualchoice and decision-making,we can discuss how and

whygroupsof individuals ecide to adoptsomesetsofnorms while rejectingothers. Peering beneath theveneer of collective behavior and a shared moraluniverse,Popkinfindsa familiar unifyingnvestment

logic (p. 244) to Vietnamesepeasant ife, a logic lessmaterialistic r income-oriented hanthat in the West,but rationalandmaximizing onetheless.

A second and relatedresponse s that moralecono-mistshavea too-pinchedonceptionof theeconomic(Booth 1994,659). In short,they fail to appreciate tsinfluence in social formationsother than that of themarket.Studies of the firm,family,and governmentdemonstrate,criticsargue,how obviouslynonmarketfeatures and institutionsare clearly the product ofprimary conomicforcesand calculations.Summariz-

ing the conclusionsof DouglassNorth,RobertBates,MichaelHechter,EdwardLeClair,and Neil Smelser,Boothwrites thatnonmarket conomiesare best un-derstood n the lightof the transactionostsassociatedwith markets p. 658, emphasisadded).The logic ofthis responseis clear-converting nonmarket nstitu-tions into full-blownmarketones simplyincurs toomany information,measurement,and enforcementcosts. Retaining nonmarketfeatures is in these in-stancescost efficient.The point,however, s thatnon-marketdoes not necessarilymean noneconomic.ForBooth, peasant moral economies in particular lendthemselves o retranslationnto the vocabulary f theeconomicapproach, hereupon itbecomesapparentthatmanyof theirbehaviorsandinstitutionalormsareeconomizingresponsesto a situationof severe riskinregardto subsistencegoods (p. 659). The work ontransactioncosts by North and others questionstheassumptionof manytraditionalmoraleconomists hatmodernity s distinguishedby the role and place ofeconomiccalculation.

The thirdand even more substantiveresponsead-dressesdirectly he masterassumption Booth 1994,653) of moraleconomists,the conceptof embedded-ness.According o Granovetter1985),embeddednessis in the end a matterof the degreeto whicheconomicbehaviors affectedbyorsubmergednsocialrelations.

Traditionalmoral economistserr in two ways.First,moraleconomists o deeplyembedeconomicbehaviorin whattheythink are socialrelations hat economicbehavior s not literallyeconomic(oversocialization).Second,what moraleconomistspresentas economicbehavior is actually an attribute of a generalizedmorality, which Granovetterdefines as a widelysharedset of implicitagreements o certainkindsof

regard for others (p. 489, citing Arrow 1974, 26).Generalizedmoralities,however, ead to otherdifficul-ties.

Accordingto Granovetter 1985), generalizedmo-ralities,whatever heircontent,arenot socialrelations.

Truly social relations involve relativelycontinuous,concrete,and specificinterpersonal ies; actors,fullyawareof these ties andcircumstances,espondaccord-ingly.Truly ocialrelationsareongoing, continuouslyconstructedand reconstructedduring nteraction p.486). In contrast,generalizedmoralitiesare external,fairlyfixed systemsof norms and values internalizedthroughsocialization.Because they are internalized,their behavior-inducing lout is contained, so tospeak, insidean individual'shead (p. 486). There-fore,behavior s automatic, ven mechanical, ndongoing social relations are irrelevant p. 486).Moraleconomistswho embedbehavior n generalizedmoralitiesparadoxicallyetain that to whichthey ob-

3 Compare this kind of criticism of rational-choice modes of analysiswith those of Sen (1977) and Monroe (1996), two scholars who workoutside the tradition of moral economy. Sen recognizes that calcu-

lations of (even personal) welfare are much more complex than theundiluted model of self-interest indicates. They involve multiplerankings of different kinds of preferences, some of which are basedon a sense of duty, as affected by morals and culture and as mediated

by commitment to religion, class, group, or community (1977,326-9).

Based upon her study of altruism, Monroe (1996) rejects individ-ualistic self-interest as an all-embracing theory of human behaviorbecause it distorts and limits our understandingof what it means tobe a human being (p. 236). Altruists in particular act well outsidethe context of calculated costs and benefits; their often personallyrisky acts of selflessness are instead spontaneous and rooted in their

deeply felt connection to all other human beings. Monroe prefers an

approach she describes as perspectival (p. 15), in which nonutili-tarian world views, core values, and a sense of self figure at least as

prominently as self-interest.

87








ject in the strictlyeconomicapproach: atomizedde-cisionmakingevenwhen decisionsareseen to involvemorethan one individual pp. 486-7).

Booth adds to the critiqueof embeddedness.He

rejectsthe use of the conceptby moral economists o

distinguish harply he characterand mannerof sub-

merged,premodern conomies frommodern,autono-mous ones, a distinction that many of them take

somewhat orgranted.Contraryo the claimsof Pola-nyi in particular,he believes close study of ancientGreeceproves hatnarrowlyational, conomicbehav-ior is never so embedded that it is theoreticallyindistinct, ot to mention invisible Booth1993a,6;1994, 654,655).Furthermore,tudyof modernmarket

societyproves hatnarrowlyational,economicbehav-ior is never so autonomous hat the very conceptof

economymustbe regardedas a productof modern

society and not trulyapplicable to the theoretical/moraluniverseof non-orprecapitalistworlds Booth1993a,6). In the end, the notion of embeddednessblindsmoraleconomiststo the analyticallymportantfact that all economies

(ancientand

modern)are

simultaneously conomizingand normativen nature,although n varyingdegrees.4

CRITIQUE

According o its severestcritics,moral-economic olit-icalanalysiss flawed.It misreads he natureof humanbehaviorand,therefore, hepolitics hatflowfrom t. It

maystimulatereflectionbut is not a particularly ow-erful or credible ine of inquiry.Rejection,however, s

premature. Rejection presumes that the traditionalnotion of moral economy is conclusive. It is not.

Interestingly,Booth'sstudyof ancientGreeceis itself

causeforrethinkinghe concept,although or reasonsother thanthose Booth emphasizes.5

Accordingto Booth, the moral architectureand

economyof ancientGreece reflected undamental nds

and values of the household,the primaryeconomicunit. As epitomized by Ischomachos n Xenophon'sOeconomicus,he household rested on careful,evenrationalcalculations f utility.Moreprecisely,ts econ-

omy turnedon the managerialrole of the wife [inrelation to servants and children] ... the need foroverseers[in relation to slaves],and.., .the issue ofhow to motivate the wife and overseer to do the

master'sworkefficiently Booth1994,659).The valueof efficiency,however, ay not in maximizinghe mas-ter'swealthbut his leisure,a prerequisiteormeaning-fulparticipationnpoliticalaffairs ndforlivinga goodand beautiful ife.

The exampleof ancientGreece,used by Booth torefute the radicalexceptionalism 1994, 662) ofmarket society, yields other insights.In short, that

societydoes not conform o whatcontemporary olit-ical science would have us believe constitutesa moral

economy.Itwasunquestionably normativelymbed-ded economyand society,which Booth describes as

anticommercial, s dedicated o a life of detachmentfrom

provisioningactivity p. 660),but it was not a

marginalsociety of subsistence-oriented easantsre-belling against he callousforces of economic ncorpo-ration. The Greek example challengespolitical sci-ence's preferencefor conceivingmoral economy intermsof premarket ommunities ndculturesclashingwith far more commercialones. Equally tellingchal-

lengesare not limited o cases drawn romtheprecapi-talistworld,as tworecent studies demonstrate.

Somerset County,Maryland

Community, ulture,and economicdevelopmentarethe subjectsof MeredithRamsay's 1996)researchon

PrincessAnne and Crisfield,Maryland,wo SomersetCounty communitiesrecently grippedby economiccrisis. Both were in trouble because longstandingmodes of production (agriculture n PrincessAnne,commercial ishingand seafood packing n Crisfield)sharplyand irrevocablydeclined between 1986 and

1991,makingMaryland's oorestcountyonly poorer.Calls for economic revitalizationwere frequentand

popular,but residentsroutinelyrejectedcommercialreal estateprojects. n fact,elite-sponsored eal estateinitiativesnPrincessAnnespawnedanunprecedentedelectoraluprising.Voterssweptout of officea numberof progrowth stablishment fficialsand even elected

their first black representative. Ramsay attributes theseand other outcomes to a nearlyuniversal commitmentto a shared way of life (1996, 8), despite racial, class,and other divisions, a way of life in which communitymattered (p. 9).

Two aspects of Ramsay's study stand out. First, her

study is firmly grounded in the moral-economic axiomthat all economies are enmeshed in the political,social, and moral life of particular places (1996, 9).6

Echoing Hahn, Ramsay emphasizes way-of-life vari-

4 According to Booth, market society is itself normativelyembedded.

In particular, labor and exchange now reflect the freedom, equality,and moral pluralism of modernity rather than, as in the past, the

hierarchyand domination of the preliberalhousehold. The transition

to market society was not, as Polanyi claims, a fateful disembeddingof economy and society but an historic moral redrawing of the

community and of the place of the economy within it (Booth 1994,

661). This perspective distinguishes Booth as a critic of moral-

economic political science. Although sharplycritical of one (from his

pointof

view, fundamental)feature of it

(analysis predicatedin

parton the embeddedness distinction), Booth supports another by ana-

lytically linking the economy of a given time and society to thenormative context within which that economy is situated. In Booth's

case, however, the linkage is general rather than specific, at the level

of economic systems writ large. As such, his quasimoral-economicargument cannot address the issue at the center of my social goodsversion: how and why moral economies (some even contrary to the

spirit of the modern market society) emerge within commercialized

market societies.5 Booth's effective critique of a sharp, Polanyian distinction between

submerged and autonomous economies does not directly questiontraditional moral economists' related claim that economic incorpo-ration of a pre- or nonmarket people often leads to collective actionrooted in moral outrage. What needs reappraisal is whether resis-tance to economic incorporation is today the only or even most

important foundation for a moral economy.

6Ramsay (1996, 135, n. 18) acknowledges Scott's influence, charac-

terizing her own work on Maryland as an independent collabora-tion.

88







AmericanPoliticalScienceReview Vol. 95, No. 1

ables (p. 107). A more finely tuned grasp of local

policy s achieved,shewrites,bypaying carefulatten-tion to the ... socialstructures ndculturalvaluesthat

give security,predictability,haracter,andmeaning othe life of a given community p. 22). In Somerset

Countysocial structuresand relationswere suchthatresidentswere reluctant o abandonor degradethemin the name of economicdevelopment.

Second,Ramsay's tudy s not of a pre- or nonmar-ket people.Localagriculture ndfishingconformed oandoperatedwithin he largermarketeconomy.Givenmodernmodes of production,hepolitically ignificantmoral economies of PrincessAnne andCrisfielddifferin origin, orm,andto somedegreecontentfromthoseassociatedwiththe Asian, African,or South American

corporatevillagesemphasized n the literature.7

Owens Valley, California

John Walton's (1992) study of the Owens Valley inCaliforniacomplimentsRamsay'sexaminationof thesocial roots of local action, althoughin his research

rebellion returns as the critical event. The tale isremarkable.At the turn of the century his ruralvalleyjust east of the Sierra Nevada rangeconfrontedthe

City of Los Angeles over access to valley water. In1924,at least twentyyearsinto the confrontation,he

dispute turned violent when residents seized andbombed hecity'swater-related oldingsandstructureswithin the valley.Led by two bankers,the bombingswere numerous,strategic,andpopular.Localsupportfrustratedefforts by Los Angeles to prosecute the

perpetrators.One investigator or the city was con-vinced nolocalgrand urywouldindict,and no courtconvict he fortyto sixtypeople he believed directly

involved Walton1992,169).LosAngelesgotthewaterit wanted,but dynamiting,arson, and other acts ofrebellioncontinuedperiodicallynto the 1970s,endingonly when new environmental aws allowed valleyresidentsto wage theirresistance hroughthe courts.Walton'sexplanationof this extraordinaryffaircom-bines elements from a numberof schoolsof thought..At the center of his explanation,however, lies anaccountof moraleconomydifferent romandsuperiorto thatusually oundin the discipline.

Walton akes to heartThompson's tatementsabouta popularconsensusrootedin the pastandcapableof

inspiringaction. He agrees with Scott, Hahn, andothersthat

operativeconceptionsof justiceand injus-tice emerge from local history, from the concretemeanings, raditions, nd mechanisms f daily ife. Thehistoryof OwensValley,frominitial white settlement

at least up to the moment of rebellion,was one ofpersistentdifficulty, acrifice,and isolation.Hardshipwas the unrelentingorder of the day, and collectiveendeavor-in the form of an elaborate, f not alwaystolerant,stringof voluntaryorganizations civil soci-ety)-was the only abundantsocial resource. Thesefrontierpeople were willingto endure hardshipandsacrifice n the hopethatprosperitywouldsomedaybe

theirs,as theirpioneeringheritage old themit would.Thisvalleyof expectantcapitalists aw the opportuni-ties and marketsassociatedwithmines,railroads,andreclamationas their commercial alvation.Unlikethecommunitiesn Burmaand Vietnamstudiedby Scott,security lay in perfecting,not rejecting,the spiritofenterprise.

According o Walton(pp. 90-103), the moralecon-omyof OwensValleyreflected tsuniquesituationandhistory.It combineda vibrantbut as yet unrealizedcommitment o commercial nterprisewith a propen-sityfor civicorganization nd collectiveendeavor.Thecombinationprovedexplosivewhenhopesforprosper-itywererepeatedly aised and dashed.Miningcompa-nies and railroads flirted with the valley but neverestablishedongoing economicventures,leavingit asdestituteas ever. Reclamationwas the last and besthope andproved he greatestdisappointment.Chosenby the newlyformed ReclamationService as an idealsite for fulfilling he promiseof the 1902ReclamationAct, which was designedto promotewestern settle-ment, small-scale family farming, and democracythroughirrigationof arid lands (no more than 320acres of irrigated and per couple), the valley finallyseemedpoisedfor transformation. bundantrrigationwater,residentsnoted, would lead to an agriculturalbonanza, population growth, a cash economy, and

economicsecurity.Moraloutragewas swift and pronouncedwhen theresidents earned that Los Angeleshad cheatedthem(throughfraud n some cases, intimidation n others)byobtainingitle to keyparcelsandall-important aterrights(pp. 154-6). Evenworse, the city had used itsinfluencewith state and federal officialsto convincePresidentTheodoreRoosevelt,ironicallya prominentadvocatefor the ReclamationAct and its ideals, tosupporta changein the project:Ratherthan use thewaterforfarmingn the OwensValley,export t to LosAngeles to subsidizethe city's alreadyphenomenalgrowth.Certainthey were the victims of a massive

injustice the Rapeof the OwensValley ),residentsdrew on their civic traditionsand rebelled (pp. xviii,168-82, 292, 312).

The studies by Ramsay and Walton support theargument that the prevailing conception of moraleconomy npolitical cience s undulynarrow.Given tsemphasison the distinctionbetween premarketandmarketsocieties, the prevailingconceptionof moraleconomyin politicalscience cannotexplainthe non-rebelliousmoraleconomiesof market-structuredom-munities n Maryland,whichhad achieveda degreeofeconomicdevelopmentbut were reluctant o developfurther, venin the face of economicdecline. Given tsemphasison resistance to commercial ncorporation,

7 The power of the prevailingconceptionof moral economy inpoliticalscience is in partterminological, s is evident n Ramsay'sstudy.Drawing n Scott's 1976) anguage,Ramsay efers o PrincessAnne andCrisfield s subsistence ommunities, n awkwardhoiceatbest. Scott'scommunities reprecapitalistndpeasant;Ramsay'sare not, even thoughtheyhave a risk-minimizing,ommunal thicthat s basedupontrust .. andmutualobligation nd s dedicatedto preserving aparticularmoralorder Ramsey1996,120).Moraleconomymust be conceivedin such a way as to account moreaccurately or the broadlysimilarnorms and reciprocities hatemanate romsharplydifferent ocial andeconomiccircumstances.

89








the prevailingconceptionof moral economycannot

explain he moralindignationandrebellionof a non-marketvalleyin Californiadesperatefor commercial

incorporation.These and related cases require an

altogetherdifferentapproach o the issue of a moral

economy.Thompson'snotion of communalegitimacyoffersa promisingalternative.

As employedbyThompson, egitimacys recognition

bya communityhat a givenstate of affairs onforms oknownandacceptedrulesandprinciples.Well-knownandlong acceptedrulesandprinciplesare the ground,Thompsonargues, or consensusandcollectiveaction.Moral economists ooselysharethis viewbut too oftencouch legitimacyin the diffuse languageof shareduniversesor traditionalnormsandobligations, estat-

ingin effectMaxWeber's amousbutgenericreferenceto the legitimacy f the eternal esterday GerthandMills1958,78). Whatis even moreproblematic,egit-imacyis complex;no one set of legitimizingrules or

principlesprevails n or acrossall cases.Dependingon

circumstances,marketrules and principlesmay well

givewayto

political,religious,or stillother

principles.Consequently, hrases uchas sharedmoraluniverse

(Scott 1976, 167) and sharedway of life (Ramsay1996, 8) too often suppressrather than reveal thevarious sources of communal egitimacyavailableat

any one time; they inhibit a clearerunderstanding f

why communities hoose one set of legitimizing ulesandprinciplesoveranother.8

Basing moral-economicpolitical analysison social

goodsis a muchmoreeffectivealternative.Given theirnature and properties,describedbelow, social goodsharbor he principles ommunities anvasswhenjudg-ingwhetherspecificdevelopmentsare legitimate.

SOCIALGOODS

Goods are objectsand qualitieswhose possessionor

consumption onferssomekind of benefit and satisfieshumanneedsandwants.Formany,goodsareunques-tionablymaterialandcommercialn nature.Everydayillustrationsnclude oreignand domesticgoods,dura-ble and nondurablegoods, basic and luxury goods.Contemporaryphilosophersagree that goods satisfyhumanneeds and wantsbut acknowledgeand often

emphasize their less material and noncommercialforms. Examples from contemporarywork include

primaryand secondarygoods (Rawls1971), goods of

excellence and goods of effectiveness (MacIntyre1988), additive and nonsubtractivegeneric goods(Gewirth 1978, 1982), and mutual and convergentgoods (Taylor1989).These deliberatelyabstract ate-gories feature such goods as opportunities,powers,rights, security, community,and well-being,that is,goods forwhich it is the task of a theoryof justicetoprovidedistributive rinciples Swift1995,224).

Theconceptof socialgoodsdevelopedbelowclearlyfalls into the latter categoryand drawscruciallyonWalzer(1983,6-10). The followingversion,however,differs n certainrespects.WhereasWalzeruses social

goods as his foundation for developinga theory of

justicethatchampionspluralism ndcomplexequality,my conceptaddresses he narrowerssueof collectiveaction that emanates from communalperceptionsof

legitimacy.Thisreorientationbrings nto evensharperrelief the centralrole of socialgoodson the identities,obligations,and relationshipsof both personsand a

people. In otherwords,a collectiveaction orientationfeatures hegoods-based ensesof self andcommunityWalzer'sgeneral theoryof justiceclearly ncorporatesbut need not alwaysemphasize n the sameway (seebelow).By analyzing ocial goods as grounds or col-lective actionI extendWalzer'sconcept, revealing nturn both the nested nature of social goods and thebasis for mytheoryof moraleconomy.

In Walzer's ustice-basedapplicationas well as myown,the notion of socialgoodsis first andforemostastatement about the universalnature of all human

goods. Even goods consideredpure commoditiesaresocial,for theyconsist of sharedunderstandingsboutthe beneficialcharacteristics ttributed o a givenob-

ject.Anyidentification f anobjectas a goodunavoid-

ably draws on culturallyconstructedand culturallytransmittedideas about human needs, wants, andbenefits. Goods don't just appear in the hands ofdistributiveagents who do with them as they like ;goods first comeinto people'sminds Walzer1983,6-7). Like the meaningof words, hevalueand mean-

ingfulnessof goods are sociallydetermined. n Walz-er's theoryof justice,the principlesof shared under-

standingsand sociallydeterminedvalue are central:

Alldistributionsre ustorunjust elative o the socialmeaningsof the goodsat stake p. 9). Moreprecisely,when we understand he social meaningof a givengood, we understandhow, by whom, and for whatreasonsit ought to be distributed p. 9).9 Althoughcentral,these principlesdo not exhaustWalzer's he-

ory. Significantly, is accountalsoincludesconstitutiveand communal enses of socialgoods,and when theseare analyzedexplicitly rom the perspectiveof collec-tive action,they speak directly o the issueof sourcesfor communalperceptionsof legitimacy.

Constitutivesocial goods establish and symbolizeimportantsenses of self. They reflect a manner of

individualand collectiveidentification hat is charac-teristicof humanbeings(Appadurai 986;DouglasandIsherwood1979). Humansacquire concrete identi-ties throughthe ways in which they conceive andcreate, and then possess and employ social goods

8 Walton makes a similar point: The fact that repertoires [of

politically significant collective action] are associated with culture

does not tell us wherestandardsof justice come from, how they affect

the state and the economy, or whether culture is a causal force or

simply a setting (1992, 325, emphasis added).

9 No one principle of distribution holds in all cases. Some goods are

justly distributedaccordingto principles of merit, others accordingto

principles of exchange or need, and so on. As a general rule,

however, no social good x should be distributed o men and womenwho possess some other good y merely because they possess y and

without regardto the meaning of x (Walzer 1983, 20, emphasis in

original). In effect, each social good is its own sphere of justice. My

concept of moral economy is consistent with and supportive of

Walzer's general theory of justice.

90







AmericanPolitical Science Review Vol. 95, No. 1

(Walzer 1983, 8). People inevitablytake stock ofthemselvesandinterpret he identitiesof others argelyin terms of social goods. Moreover,patterneduse,display,and exchangeof socialgoods place people in

specificsocial, economic,and even politicalrelations.

Amongthe Nuerof Africa, orinstance,cattle connect

people to one another n vitalways,not just as herds-

man, buyer,or seller. Cattle structure he status,ca-

pacities, and obligations of individuals. Owned byfamilies,cattlereflectandreproduce he all-importantnetworkof kinshipties (Evans-Pritchard940, 17).

Nuer allocate cattle accordingly, nd theirmovementfrom one kraalto another is equivalento lines in a

genealogicalchart p. 18). Couplesfinalizethe unionof marriage hroughritualistic laughterof cattle,andtheirlegalstatusas a married oupleis inpart defined

by cattlerightsandobligations p. 17). Cattlearenot

simplybeasts of burdenor sources orfood,psycholog-ically and sociologically hey are an integral part ofwhat it meansto be a Nuer. They are socialgoods in

wayscompatiblewith butdeeperthanthatconveyedbythe notion of sharedunderstandings lone;cattle are

the foundationfor importantprocesses,roles, identi-ties, andrelationshipswithout which it wouldbe verydifficult o speakof Nuer societyand culture.

The value of these identity-orienting,ole-shapinggoods extendsbeyond their purelymaterial or com-mercialproperties. nsofaras constitutive ocialgoodsstructure he status and obligationsof persons,theirvalue includesthe meaningfulness f the relationshipsand the sensesof selfgenerated.Undercertaincircum-

stances,this identity-relatedalue overrides heir nar-rowercommodity alue. Choices n these instancesmaywell reflectrationalesother than the strictly conomic.

Equallyimportant,at least from the perspectiveof a

theoryof moraleconomy,deeplyvalued identitiesandrelationships re latent but easily triggered ources or

assessing he legitimacyof both proposedand emerg-ing developments.

Considerrice in Japan.It is, of course,a food,yet itis much more. Accordingto Ohnuki-Tierney 1993,102),rice is the criticalmetaphorbyandthroughwhich

Japanese thinkabout themselves n relation to other

peoples. These reflections are in turn an equallycriticalpartof theirconceptof thecollectiveself ' p.102). It was in terms of short-grain ice (agri)culturethat the Japanese recognizedthemselves as a peoplesignificantlydifferent from the meat and wheat ori-

ented West and, more important, he long-grainriceculturesof Asia,inparticularChina.AlthoughJapan sno longer predominantlyagricultural,a rice-basedsense of self persists.Rice and ricepaddiesremain hedefining ymbolsof Japanand its ancestral and. Com-pared to bamboo, sashimi,or many other Japanesefoods and symbols, rice is sacred. Its harvest andconsumption ften are a matterof ritualand collectivecelebration,ts whiteness s a symbolof Japanesepurityand virtue. This significancereaches and affects theconduct of everyday ife. Rice is the most commonoffering n the ancestralalcovesfound in many Japa-nese homes,a gesturethatpreservesa sense of familycontinuity s well as conveysrespect.The role of rice in

reproducing ndmaintaining sense of familyextendsto the meal itself:

Whereas ishesareserved n individuallatesaheadoftime in urbanJapanesehouseholdsoday,rice aloneremainshecommonood o be distributedythewomanof the house.Commensalityithin he households sym-bolizedby the act of distributingice from a singlecontainer....The collectiveelfof thefamily-themost

basic unit of Japanese ociety-is constructedhroughsharingiceduring ailymeals p.95).

Rice is a trulysocialgood, andits longstanding nd

ongoingrole in establishing Japanesesenseof collec-tive self is at times a prominentfactor in evaluatingemergingdevelopments.n the late 1980s, orexample,when officialsannouncedplans to importCaliforniarice (it was far moreplentifuland much ess expensivethan the declining uppliesof Japaneserice),the socialvalue of rice prevailedover its value as a staple.10Although the Japanese import and consume otherAmerican ood products, hey vigorouslyopposedand

ultimatelydefeated the proposal o importrice. Urban

Japanese,women in particular,made the difference.Theiroppositionwas broadand decisive but contraryto their nterestsas consumers.EventhoughCaliforniarice had been sown from short-grain tocksimportedfromJapan, heJapanese oundit impure, foreign,corruptionof the lastsacredrealm, and a threat to

Japanese identity and autonomy (Ohnuki-Tierney1993, 111). In this instance,the seeminglyirrational

opposition o importation eflecteda commitmento a

deeper,more important alue,unrelated o price. 1In addition o theirinfluenceon identityandstatus,

select social goods are intrinsically ommunal n na-ture. Thesegoods produce(or at leastreproduce) hesensibilitiesand specialcommitment o one another

(Walzer 1983, 62) that make associated people acommunity.Although relative to each community,intrinsicallyommunal ocialgoodsare the foundationfortrulycommonactions.Unlike othergoods,theyarenot simply convergent nnature,a matter orme and

(then)foryou.Intrinsicallyommunal ocialgoodsaremutual and indivisible,a matter for us (Taylor1989,166-9). The goods of security,welfare,and member-

shipillustrate;n each case participationn a commonlife is, as Walzer 1983, 65) putsit, simultaneouslyhe

prerequisiteof provisionand one of its products.Because these goods are mutual and indivisible, heylinkpeopleascitizens,and as citizenspeoplerecognize

joint responsibilities ndpursuewhat are now unmis-

10 Walzerdistinguishes etweenthe not alwayscompatiblemoralandphysical necessities f goods.Which et of necessitiesprevailsdependson circumstances.read,Walzer 1983,8) notes,is notjusta fooditem; t is thebodyof Christ, he symbolof the Sabbath,hemeansof hospitality, ndso on. For the devoutwho viewbread as

symbolic f important eligiousvaluesandrelationships,t maywellbe somethinghat,depending n circumstances,eopleshouldbakeanddestroyrather han sell or eat.11Reminiscentof Monroe, Ohnuki-Tierney1993, 9) finds theeconomic assumptionsof rational-choiceheory inappropriate.Rice,sheconcludes, isnotsimply oodto fillthestomach. apaneseattitudesand behaviors owardrice are not governedby economicrationale p. 29).Instead, heyreflect hecomplex ocialpsychologyof rice as self.

91








takably ollectiveaffairs. f,asWalzerargues,member-

ship in human communityis the most importantgood (p. 29) we distribute to one another, then

intrinsically ommunal ocial goods are an additionaland perhapseven morepotentbasison whichpeoplejudge legitimacy.

Social goods are not as singularor discrete as

analysismustsometimesportray hem. As with rice in

Japan,socialgoodscan and do harbormore than onekind of meaningandvalue,particularlyf the good in

question akesa commodityorm.Like the nestedpotsin a backpacker'skit, multiplesets of meaningandvalue serve differentpurposes but rest within theconfines of one another.Tobacco, for instance,has

longbeengrown orits commercial alue,andfortuneshavebeen made from its cultivation. n 1849,Missouri

plantersproducedmore than 17 millionpoundsof it,surpassingeven North Carolina. Planters sold theirtobaccoin the marketsof St. Louis and New Orleans,but they did not regard t simplyas a cash crop.ForMissouriplanters,muchlike theirKentuckyand Vir-

giniaancestors,obaccowas a social

good;the

rhythmsand ritualsof its cultivationwere an important ourcefor collectivedentity and harmony Phillips2000,123).More thaneven profit,verdant ieldsof tobaccowere a shared ign of communityhealth and mem-

bership,as central to the collective sense of self (andunrelatedto market price) as rice paddies for the

Japanese.12Defyingthe logic of marketsand profits,Missouriplanters ncreasedproductiononly modestlywhentobaccopriceswere at all timehighs(otherstates

tripledproduction)but doubledproductionwhen theirtobacco-centered enses of self and communitywereassailedby a decade-longruinouscollapse in prices(pp. 123, 124). Similarto the rice example,tobacco

illustratesmportantpointsfor moral-economic oliti-cal analysis. Beyond the fact that many goods arenestedcomplexesof value thatdiffer n kindaswell as

degree, the constitutiveand communalpropertiesofsocialgoodsoften set theboundarieswithinwhich heirother values operate.A social good's commodity ta-tus,then(should t haveone), need not clash automat-

icallyor completelywith that good's less commercialroles.

A focus on social goods facilitatesanalysis n stillotherways.Multiplebut nestedvalues and meaningsaccountfor the diverse(butnot alwaysperfectlycom-

patible) practices surroundinggiven goods. Nested

valuesanddiversepractices xplain nturn hebasisforconflict.Significantly,he conflictrelated to such com-

plex socialgoods as rice and tobaccois not justaboutmore favorableallocationsor greatermaterialgain; tinvolveswhatkind of value shouldprevail nparticular,often changing ituations.Nested sets of meaningandvalue also explain how, given even only slightlychangedcircumstances, reviouslyaccepted practices

(suchas commodity-likexchange)maycome to gen-erate perceptionsof illegitimacy. n Japan,rice is in

many respectsa commodity,appropriatelyubjecttothe competitivepressures f commercial xchange,but

onlyto apoint.Beyond hatpoint,whenrice-based nd

quintessentially apaneseidentities and relationshipsarecompromised, ice'ssocialvalueprevails.Likewisefor tobaccoin nineteenth-centuryMissouri and else-

where); t was aneconomically aluablecommodity utwas even more valuable as a mediumfor stable and

fulfilling ocialrelations.13In some communities ocial goods are clusteredas

well as nested. Clustered social goods intensifyfelt

impressionsof

belongingand

membership,addingtexture andweightto the notion of culturallydistinctbut sharedwaysof life. Linkagesamongclustersaresuch that, for those who enjoythem, affiliatedgoodsmaywell stand or fall together.Amongyeomanfarm-ers and artisansin nineteenth-centuryMissouri,forinstance,work,family ife, religion,and politicsweredistinct but deeplyintertwined ocial goods;each re-flected and in turn sustained an economy in which

production,consumption,and pricingwere governedby local, self-sufficient ommunitiesbased upon per-sonal networksand face-to-face elations.Farmersandartisans understoodall too well the implicationsof

expandingrailroads; mpersonal,commercialsociety

would alter not justthe localeconomybut life as theyknew it (Thelen 1986,9-25).

Given their nature andmeaningfulness,onstitutiveandintrinsicallyommunal ocialgoodsare sources orshared notions of legitimacy.Roles, identities, andcommunitiesgrounded n social goods contain withinthem the criteria or evaluating pecificdevelopmentsas appropriate r inappropriate,t least for those who

recognize he goodsin questionas socialgoods.These

meaningsand related criteriaare the foundation or a

conceptionof moraleconomybasedon socialgoods.A

preliminaryketch, demonstration, ndjustification fthis conceptfollows.

MORAL ECONOMY REDEFINED

Conceptually,moraleconomyremainsa popularcon-sensus rooted in the past and capable of inspiringaction. With Thompson, t reflects a claim about thenatureof and sourcesfor communalnotions of legiti-macy.In this versionof moraleconomy,however, he

12Tobaccoculture osteredpowerfulandofteninsularconceptionsof community. ccordingo Waldrep 1993,13-4), whodidresearchin westernKentuckyand Tennessee, tobacco armersdevelopedunusuallyclose ties with their neighbors.Even a small crop oftobaccorequired o mucheffort hat[they]swappedoffworkingoneach other'sfarms. Womenfrequentlyoined their husbandsandfathersin the fields.... Neighborhoodwomen worked so closelytogether o clothetheirfamilies,sharingpatternsandsewing ech-

niques,that communitiesdevelopeddistinctive tylesof dress andresidents ould mmediatelydentifyoutsidersbytheirclothes.Onlyrarelydidneighborhood irlsmarry utsidethe community. reen

(1984, 251, 261) speaksof an earlyAmerican obacco cultureinwhichcultivationwassimultaneouslyhebasisfor social ohesion,a mechanismorforginga publicdentity, nd emblematic f the

larger ocialorder'spastandfuture.

13Tobacco-based enses of self and community ueled the BlackPatch War (1890-1915) in westernKentuckyand Tennessee,a

region famousfor its darktobaccoand fierce hostility o outsideinterests ent onunderminingocalcommunityontrol.SeeWaldrep1993.

92







AmericanPoliticalScience Review Vol. 95, No. 1

popularconsensusabout whatdistinguishesegitimatefromillegitimatepracticesresides n the nestedmean-

ings of specific constitutiveand/or communal social

goods. These meaningsharbor mplicitnotions about

legitimatepracticesas well as legitimaterelationsinandamongaffectedgroupsand individuals.14 signif-icant threat o or a sustained,deliberatedeviation rom

accepted practicesand relations promptsorganized

response,whichcan rangefrompubliccriticism,egalchallenges,and policy initiativesto more unconven-tionaland violent formsof protest, ncluding ebellion.Water n the aridAmericanWest is a particularlyoodillustrationor two reasons.

First,water has longbeen associatedwith a numberof generallydesirablebutfrequently ompetingvalues.It is valued not onlyas a sourceof sustenancebut alsoas an instrumentof agriculture,object of beauty,industrialcommodity,means of transportation,om-

munitygood, fuel for urbandevelopment,clean and

pure resource,and place for recreationand wildlifehabitat Wilkenson1990).The West'spersistentaridity(manyareasreceive ess than 12inchesof precipitationayear)complicatesdecisionmaking,becauseallwater-related values cannot be realizedequally.Moreover,realizationof anyone valuemaywell preclude hat ofone or more others.Consequently,he just allocationof scarce water is a constant challenge, the fertile

settingfor a moraleconomyof a complexgood.Second,water s a constitutiveandintrinsicallyom-

munalsocialgood.Westernersdentify hemselvesandrelate to others ntermsofwater,whichplaysmuch hesame role as rice in Japanor tobacco in nineteenth-

centuryMissouri.The most important orms of rela-tion and identificationderive from the fact that long-termcommunity ndpolity n the aridAmericanWest

are not possiblewithout an ongoing ability o procureand allocatewater.Figurativelyf not literally atthecenter of humancommunities Bateset al. 1993,14),water is embedded in the very notion of collectiveexistence. It relates communityresidents as citizens,impressing upon them in particulartheir mutual

dependency, ommonenterprise, ndjointresponsibil-ity (Sax 1990,17).15

Founded n partonwater,westerncommunities ndtheir residentsrecognizeand frequently nteractwithone another in terms of shared or contested rivers,watersheds,and aquifers.Waterrightsand practices,diversionstructures,and a varietyof water-oriented

districts,nstitutions, ndorganizationsdentifypeoplein even more particularways: water rights holderversusnonholders, uniorversus senior appropriator,

up-versusdownstreamommunity,owerversusupperbasinstate,and so on. The web of physical, egal,andadministrative tructuresthat capture and allocatewaterconstitutes n effect a social andpoliticalmatrixthat individuals,communities,and states invariablytake into account. In other words,water is a vitalmediumforsocialandpoliticalrelations,a mediumatthe center of processesof community, ven regional

self-identificationBrownandIngram1987).Water's status as a constitutive and intrinsicallycommunal ocialgood accounts or the factthat west-erners conceive and cherish water in terms beyondthose of mere economicutility.It is not simplya liquidwith certainphysicalproperties,a thingunto itself, a

commoditywhose value is realizedonly or essentiallyin economic exchange.Water symbolizes inherentlydesirable states of affairsachieved and experiencedonly in concert with others, in particular he mutual

advantages f schools,churches,and sociallife, of acivic and moralas well as economicprogress (Mead1903,382;see also Hundley1992;Pisani1984;Sherow

1990).16Becauseof these deeplyvaluedand clustered

senses of community ndself,water ssues turn on farmore than questionsof how to allocateefficientlyan

increasingly carceyet increasingly aluableresource.Also involved s the more difficult ut importantques-tion of whichwater-relatedvalue should prevailand

whyin givensituations.As in the examplesof rice and

tobacco,water-related enses of communityand self,especiallywhen threatened,establish the context forevaluationand action.

The deeplyrooted and politicallysignificantmoral

economy of water springsfrom its constitutiveand

intrinsicallyommunalproperties.Longvalued for itsrole in creatingand maintainingcivicallyrewarding

communities,waterhas a moralthrust that is funda-mentallynegative;neffect,waterallocationsnthe endshouldnot undermineachieved or expectedcommu-

nity. Simplyput,transfers nd allocations hat threatenor undermine he integrityof communityare illegiti-mate. Subordinatinghe dispositionof water to the

integrity f communitys legitimatebecausetheauton-

omy,welfare,andidentityof westerncommunities retied directly o water.17

The embeddedandnegativenatureof water'smoral

economyaffectshowwesterns nvoke it. Becauseem-bedded,its longstandingmeaningsandunderstandingsat times are taken forgranted.Consequently,western-

ers invoke t sporadically, ften in responseto specificcircumstancesand with the objectiveof more firmly

14 Myideais similar o Wuthnow's1987)conceptof a moralorder:a concept essentially boutculture.., an attributeof social rela-tions (p. 58). Moralorders expressboundaries, o thatwe mayknow theplaceof things, ndthey nclude implicit ategorieshatdefineproperrelationsamong ndividuals ndgroups p. 69).15Theseintrinsicallyommunal ropertiesqualifywateras a sphereof security ndwelfare,whichWalzer 1983,64) describesn partas

political ommunityorthe sake of provision, rovisionorthe sakeof community. hecommunal roperties nd effectsof water nthearidWest can be compared o those of education, umptuaryaws,relief,andransomof captivesnWalzer's nalysis f medieval ewishcommunitiespp. 71-4).

16 Ingram ndOggins 1990,5, 10) emphasizehenoneconomic iewof water. nasurvey f leadersnArizona,NewMexico,andwesternTexaswhose communities tood to lose waterthrough ntensifiedwatermarketingeconomically rivenrural-to-urbanransfers),he

overwhelmingmajority haracterizedhe loss as damaging o ruralcommunitiesand not subjectto compensation.According o one,whena communityosesitswater t loses tspresent, tspast,and tsfuture.17Bateset al. (1993,182)refer o this asa principle f equity, ooted

in the shared,publicnatureof water. Equitydictates, hey con-clude, that water-relateddecisions nvolve and reflect thewhole

community, ot just those partsthat were there firstor that have

moneyor power p. 178).

93








securing he integrityof specificcommunities includ-ingstates).18 heseinvocationspairacts of rediscoverywith calls for change. In each instance westerners

negotiatewater'smultipleuses andmeaningsnlightofboth new circumstances and water's fundamentalmoralimperative.

Beyondpublicandoftenemotionally hargeddecla-rationsof concernor injustice,19esternersnvokethe

moraleconomyof waterthroughappealsfor reform,new legislation,reinterpretation f existinglaws, ormore directaction, includingviolence (Babbitt1988;Dunbar 1983; Pisani 1984; Sherow 1990; Walton

1992).20Results have been broadlyand consistentlyregulatory.Many of these regulations,unlike thoseassociatedwithothernaturalresources,shelterwaterfromfullyself-interested,privatized, r market-driven

transactions,which qualifieswater as an exampleofwhat Walzercalls a blockedexchange. 21he limitswesternershaveplacedon the exchange,sale, appro-priation,or transferof water ncludegrantingt publicownershipor publicresourcestatus;nonexport aws;

publictrust,welfare,or interest review of proposed

transactions; eneficialuse requirementsofficiallyn-terpretedn somestatesasa prohibition n speculationin waterforprofit);and,since the OwensValleyaffair,area-of-origintatutes,which ncludevesting rrigationandotherwater-related istrictsor associationswithaveto over all out-of-watershedransfers DuMarsandMinnis 1989; Hoffman-Dooley 1996; MacDonnell

1990; MacDonnelland Howe 1986; Sax 1989; Tre-

garthen1983).22Coupledwith ongstandingearsaboutwatermonopolies (Alston 1978),these limitationsre-flect deep concernsaboutwater-relatedmeasures hatwouldsubjectstatesor communities o external,arbi-

trary control and, consequently, compromise theiridentities as states and communities.23 ooted in the

past and in water'sstatus as a constitutiveand intrin-

sicallycommunalsocial good, the moraleconomyofwaterremains he basisfordetermininghe legitimacyof a numberof water-related ctivities.

A moral-economic oliticalanalysisbased on social

goods is justified or at least three reasons.First,this

concept,unlikethe prevailingview, is not limitedbytime orculture.Socialgoodsand theirattendantmoraleconomies are characteristicof modern as well as

premoderncommunities.Political science need notrestrictmoral-economicnalysis o the clashof embed-dedversusautonomous conomies,or, for thatmatter,to the phenomenonof rebellion.Second,socialgoodsand moral economies are plural,not singular.Eachmoral economy is a separate althoughoften nested

sphereof action-inspiringegitimacy.Unlike the over-

ridingeconomicutilityof rational-choiceheoryor theundifferentiated ebs-of-lifeof traditionalmoralecon-

omy, my revision honors the moral complexityofhumancommunities,and it capturesmuchmore pre-cisely the groundsfor politicallysignificantmoralin-dignation.Third,the groundingn socialgoods mini-mizes the riskof under-or oversocialized onceptionsof economic behavior.Because of the mutual,consti-tutive,and subjectivelymeaningfulpropertiesof spe-cific social goods, moral economy is embedded in

concrete,ongoingsocial relations,not in generalized,mechanicalmoralitiesor romanticizedpasts.In sum,importantkinds of political and economic activityreflectthe inherently ulturalpropertiesof meaningfulgoods,and a moral-economic nalysisbased on social

goods is especiallywell suited to explain hem.

18 This sporadic aspect supports Walzer's argument that the distri-

butional autonomy of social goods is a critical principle, that the

demand for autonomy is more likely to make for occasional

reformation and rebellion than for everyday enforcement (Walzer1983, 10).19For example, residents across sixcounties in the San Luis Valley of

Colorado recently responded to plans to sell the valley'sgroundwaterto Denver and other large cities. They placed a notice in the Denver

Post: We, the undersigned citizens, are committed to preservingthe

water within Colorado's San Luis Valley for land and life. Private

marketers are drawing up plans to take water from the Valley and

sell to other parts of Colorado or other regions. Weare opposed to

theseplans.....

We are committed to fight efforts to take water from

this beautiful place, the San Luis Valley. Help us to protect land and

life (Johnston et al. 1996, 5 B, emphasis in the original).20

Secretaryof the Interior Babbitt, a former governor of Arizona,

characterized unfettered, market-driven rural-to-urban transfers of

water as economic Darwinism and recommended protective regu-lations and oversight. Otherwise, he predicted, big cities will

inexorablysqueeze the water and the life out of small communities

(Babbitt 1988, 7).21 Blocked exchanges set limits on the dominance of wealth

(Walzer 1983, 99). Due to their shared understandings, some goods

(e.g., human beings, rights, criminaljustice) properly fall outside the

sphere of money altogether. Other goods (medical care, education,

and, I argue,water in the aridAmerican West) are partiallyblocked;market-like exchanges are permitted but only to the extent that the

sphere of money does not jeopardize the core, noncommodity values

associated with those goods.22 Area-of-origin statutes limit interbasin transfers to prevent envi-

ronmental, political, and/or economic losses to the areas from which

the water is transferred.

23Westerners' historical objections to water monopolies effectivelyillustrate Walzer's theory of social goods, dominance, and monopoly.Walzer (1983, 10-3) defines dominance and monopoly as the unjustconversion of one social good into another. In the end, he concludes,

dominance of goods makes for the domination of people (p. 19),which is precisely what westerners fear about water monopolies.

REFERENCES

Alston, Richard M. 1978.CommercialInigationEnterprise, heFearof

Monopoly, and the Genesis of Market Distortion in the Nineteenth

CenturyAmerican West.New York: Arno.

Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The Social Life of Things. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Arrow, Kenneth. 1974. The Limits of Organization. New York:

Norton.

Babbitt, Bruce. 1988. Urbanized West Needs New Water Laws.

Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1988, Part Two, p. 7.

Bates, Robert H., and Amy Farmer Curry.1992. CommunityVersus

Market: A Note on Corporate Villages. American Political Sci-

ence Review 86 (June): 457-63.

Bates, Sarah, David H. Getches, Lawrence J. MacDonnell, and

Charles F. Wilkenson. 1993. SearchingOut the Headwaters:Changeand Rediscovery n WesternWaterPolicy. Washington, DC: Island.

Booth, William James. 1993a. Households: On the MoralArchitecture

of the Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Booth, William James. 1993b. A Note on the Idea of the Moral

Economy. American Political Science Review 87 (December):949-54.

Booth, William James. 1994. On the Idea of the Moral Economy.American Political Science Review 66 (September): 653-67.

Breen, T. H. 1984. The Culture of Agriculture:The SymbolicWorld

94







AmericanPoliticalScienceReview Vol. 95, No. 1

of the Tidewater Planter, 1760-1790. In Saints and Revolutionar-

ies, ed. David Hall, John Murrin, and Thad Tate. New York:

W. W. Norton, Pp. 247-84.

Brown, F. Lee, and Helen Ingram. 1987. Water and Povertyin the

Southwest. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Dalton, George. 1961. Economic Theory and Primitive Society.American Anthropologist63 (February): 1-25.

Douglas, Mary, and Baron Isherwood. 1979. The Worldof Goods.

New York: Basic Books.

DuMars, Charles, and Michelle Minnis. 1989. New Mexico Water

Law: Determining Public Welfare Values in Water Rights Alloca-tions. Arizona Law Review 31 (4): 817-39.

Dunbar, Robert G. 1983. Forging New Rights in Western Waters.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. The Nuer. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Frerejohn, John. 1991. Rationality and Interpretation: Parliamen-

tary Elections in Early Stuart England. In The Economic Ap-

proach to Politics: A CriticalReassessmentof the Theoryof Rational

Action, ed. Kristen Monroe. New York: Harper Collins. Pp.279-305.

Gerth, Hans, and C. Wright Mills. 1958. From Max Weber:Essays in

Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gewirth, Alan. 1978. Reason and Morality. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Gewirth, Alan. 1982. Human Rights.Chicago: University of ChicagoPress.

Gosner, Kevin. 1992. Soldiersof the Virgin:TheMoralEconomy of a

Colonial Maya Rebellion. Tucson and London: University of Ari-

zona Press.

Granovetter, Mark. 1985. Economic Action and Social Structure:

The Problem of Embeddedness. AmericanJournalof Sociology91

(November): 481-510.

Hahn, Steven. 1983. The Roots of Southern Populism. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Heilke, Thomas. 1997. Locating a Moral/Political Economy: Les-

sons from Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism. Polity 30 (Winter):199-229.

Hoffman-Dooley, Susanne. 1996. Determining What Is in the Public

Welfare in Water Appropriations. Natural ResourcesJournal 36

(Winter): 103-26.

Hundley, Norris, 1992. The Great Thirst: Californians and Water,1770s-1990s. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ingram, Helen, and Cy Oggins. 1990. Water, the Community, andMarkets in the West. Western Water Policy Project DiscussionSeries Paper No. 6. Natural Resources Law Center, University of

Colorado School of Law.

Johnston, Richard, et al. 1996. Water: Take It or Leave It? The

Denver Post, October 20, 1996. 5 B.

Lichbach, Mark. 1994. What Makes Rational Peasants Revolution-

ary? Dilemma, Paradox, and Irony in Peasant Collective Action.WorldPolitics 46 (April): 382-418.

MacDonnell, Lawrence J. 1990. Transferring Water Uses in the

West. Oklahoma Law Review 43 (Spring): 19-30.

MacDonnell, Lawrence J., and Charles Howe. 1986. Area-Of-

Origin Protection in Interbasin Water Diversions. UniversityofColoradoLaw Review 57 (Spring): 527-48.

Maclntyre, Alasdair C. 1988. Whose Justice? Which Rationality?Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

McMath, Robert C., Jr. 1985. SandyLand and Hogs in the Timber:(Agri)Cultural Origins of the Farmers' Alliance in Texas. In The

Countrysidein the Age of Capitalist Transformation,ed. Steven

Hahn and Jonathan Prude. Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press. Pp. 205-29.

Mead, Elwood. 1903. IrrigationInstitutions. New York: MacMillan.

Monroe, Kristen. 1996. TheHeartofAltruism. Princeton, NJ: Prince-ton University Press.

Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. 1993. Rice as Self. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Phillips, Christopher. 2000. Missouri's Confederate: Claiborne Fox

Jackson and the Creation of SouthernIdentityin the Border West.

Columbia: University of Missouri Press.

Pisani, Donald J. 1984. From Family Farm to Agribusiness: The

IrrigationCrusade n Californiaand the West,1850-1931. Berkeley:

University of California Press.

Polanyi, Karl. 1957. The Great Transformation.Boston: Beacon.

Posusney, Marsha Pripstein. 1993. Irrational Workers: The Moral

Economy of Labor Protest in Egypt. WorldPolitics 46 (October):83-120.

Popkin, Samuel L. 1979. The Rational Peasant. Berkeley: Universityof California Press.

Ramsay, Meredith. 1996. Community,Culture,and Economic Devel-

opment: TheSocial Roots of LocalAction. Albany: State Universityof New York Press.

Rawls, John. 1971. A Theoryof Justice. Cambridge:HarvardUniver-

sity Press.

Sax, Joseph. 1989. The Limits of Private Rights in Public Waters.

EnvironmentalLaw 19 (Spring): 473-83.

Sax, Joseph. 1990. The Constitution, Property Rights and the

Future of Water Law. Western Water Policy Project Discussion

Series Paper No. 2. Natural Resources Law Center: University of

Colorado School of Law.

Scott, James C. 1976. TheMoralEconomy of the Peasant. New Haven,CT: Yale University Press.

Sen, Amartya. 1977. Rational Fools: A Critique of the BehavioralFoundations of Economic Theory. Philosophyand PublicAffairs6

(Summer): 317-44.

Sherow, James. 1990. Wateringhe Valley:Developmentalong theHighPlains Arkansas River, 1870-1950. Lawrence: University Press of

Kansas.

Strickland,John S. 1985. Traditional Culture and Moral Economy:Social and Economic Change in the South Carolina Low Country.In The Countrysidein the Age of Capitalist Transformation,ed.

Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude. Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press. Pp. 141-78.

Swift, Adam. 1995. The Sociology of Complex Equality. In Plural-

ism, Justice, and Equality, ed. David Miller and Michael Walzer.

Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 253-80.

Taylor, Charles. 1989. CrossPurposes:The Liberal-Communitarian

Debate. In Liberalismand the Moral Life, ed. Nancy L. Rosen-

blum. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 159-82.Thelen, David. 1986. Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Dignity in

IndustrializingMissouri.New York: Oxford University Press.

Thompson, E. P. 1971. The Moral Economy of the English Crowd

in the Eighteenth Century. Past and Present 50 (February):76-136.

Tregarthen, Timothy D. 1983. Waterin Colorado: Fear and Loath-

ing of the Marketplace. In WaterRights:Scarce ResourceAlloca-

tion, Bureaucracy,and the Environment, ed. Terry L. Anderson.

Cambridge, MA: Ballinger. Pp. 119-36.

Waldrep, Christopher. 1993. Night Riders:Defending Community in

the Black Patch, 1890-1915. Durham, NC, and London: Duke

University Press.

Walton, John. 1992. WesternTimes and Water Wars:State, Culture

and Rebellion in California. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress.

Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.

Wilkenson, Charles F. 1990. Values and Western Water: A Historyof the Dominant Ideas. Western Water Policy Project Discussion

Series Paper No. 1. Natural Resources Law Center, University ofColorado School of Law.

Wolf, Eric R. 1969.Peasant Warsof the TwentiethCentury.New York:

Harper and Row.

Wuthnow, Robert. 1987. Meaning and Moral Order:Explanationsin

CulturalAnalysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.

95

arnold - rethinking moral economy

Documents