The authors develop E. P. Thompson's concept of moral economy as a useful complement to contemporary political economic analysis in problem areas involving moral conflict. Defined as the shared assumptions underlying norms of reciprocity in which an economic system is grounded, moral economy is seen as holding particular relevance for the study of aging. The evolution of pension systems, the “senior revolt” against catastrophic coverage in the United States, and debates over the allocation of health resources between generations are used to illustrate the utility of a combined political and moral economy for enriching our understanding in these areas. Marx's concept of a “morality of emancipation” is described as holding particular promise for the development of a new moral economy of old age that would move beyond alienation by giving broad attention to quality of life issues at each stage of the life course.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
WaltonJ.Urban political economy. Comp. Urban Res. 7: 1, 9, 1979.
2.
EstesC. L.SwanJ. H.GerardL. E.Dominant and competing paradigms in gerontology: Toward a political economy of aging. In Readings in the Political Economy of Aging, edited by MinklerM.EstesC. L., pp. 25–36. Baywood, Amityville, N.Y., 1984.
3.
HendricksJ.LeedhamC. A.Toward a political and moral economy of aging: An alternative perspective. Int. J. Health Serv. 22: 125–137, 1992.
4.
WalkerA.Toward a political economy of old age. Ageing Soc. 1: 73–94, 1981.
5.
OlsonL. K.The Political Economy of Aging. Columbia University Press, New York, 1982.
6.
GuillemardA. M.Old age, retirement and the social class structure: Toward an analysis of the structural dynamics of the latter stages of life. In Aging and Life Course Transitions: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, edited by HarevenT. K.AdamsK. J., pp. 221–243. Guildford, New York, 1982.
7.
GramsciA.Selections from the Prison Notebooks, edited and translated by HoareQ.SmithG. Nowell. Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1971.
8.
HabermasJ.Introduction. In Observations on “The Spiritual Situation of the Age” (trans. BuchwalterA.), edited by HabermasJ., pp. 19–20. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1984.
9.
FrazerN.Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1989.
10.
WalzerM.Spheres of Justice. Basic Books, New York, 1983.
11.
MouffeC.Hegemony and new political subjects: Toward a new concept of democracy. In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by NelsonC.GrossbergL., pp. 89–104. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1988.
12.
SandelM. J.Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge University Press, New York, 1982.
SchmidtA.History and Structures, translated by HerfJeffrey. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Waltham, Mass., 1983.
15.
SpickerS.WoodwardK.Van TasselD. D. (eds.). Aging and the Elderly: Humanistic Perspectives in Gerontology. Academic Press, New York, 1978.
16.
ColeT. R.GadowS. A.What Does It Mean to Grow Old? Reflections from the Humanities. Duke University Press, Durham, N.C., 1986.
17.
ColeT. R.Van TasselD. D.KastenbaumR. (eds.). Handbook of Aging and the Humanities. Springer, New York, 1991, in press.
18.
GouldnerA.The Two Marxisms: Contradictions and Anomalies in the Development of Theory. Seabury Press, New York, 1980.
19.
LukesS.Marxism and Morality. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985.
20.
ThompsonE. P.The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays, pp. 363–364. Merline Press, London, 1978.
21.
VorlanderK.Marx und Kant. Vortrag genhalten in Wien am 8 April 1904. Verlag der “Deutschen Worte,”Vienna, 1904.
22.
MarxK.EngelsF.Manifesto of the Communist Party. Marx Engels Collected Works 6, 1848.
23.
HartH. L. A.Are there any natural rights?Philosoph. Rev.64: 177–178, 1955.
24.
MarxK.EngelsF.The German Ideology. Marx and Engels Collected Works 5, 1845–1846.
25.
ThompsonE. P.The Making of the English Working Class. Vintage Books, New York, 1966.
26.
ClaeysG.Machinery, Money and the Millennium: From Moral Economy to Socialism, 1815–1860. Polity Press, Cambridge, England, 1987.
27.
DurkheimE.The Division of Labor. Macmillan, New York, 1933 (1893).
28.
KohliM.Retirement and the moral economy: An historical interpretation of the German case. J. Aging Stud. 1: 125–144, 1987.
29.
ScottJ. C.The Moral Economy of the Peasant Rebellion and Subsistence in South East Asia. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1976.
30.
EvansG.From Moral Economy to Remembered Village. Working Paper #40. Center for South East Asian Studies, Monash University, Australia, 1986.
31.
RavallionM.DeardenL.Social security in a moral economy: An empirical analysis for Java. Rev. Econ. Stat.70: 36–44, 1988.
32.
BrocheuxP.Moral economy or political economy? The peasants are always rational. J. Asian Stud. 42: 791–803, 1983.
33.
GersunyC.KaufmanG.Seniority and the moral economy of U.S. automobile workers, 1934–1946. J. Soc. Hist., Spring 1985, pp. 463–475.
34.
McPhersonC. B.The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism. Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, 1962.
35.
PerlmanS.A Theory of the Labor Movement (1928). Macmillan, New York, 1949.
36.
QuadagnoJ.Organized labor, state structures and social policy: A case study of old age assistance in Ohio, 1916–1940. Soc. Probl.36: 181–196, 1989.
37.
MylesJ.Old Age in the Welfare Stale: The Political Economy of Public Pensions. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 1989.
38.
MylesJ.Postwar capitalism and the extension of social security into a retirement wage. In The Politics of Social Policy in the United States, edited by WeirM.OrloffA. SholaSkocpolT., pp. 265–284. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1988.
39.
GraebnerW.The History of Retirement. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1980.
40.
CallahanD.Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society. Simon & Schuster, New York, 1987.
41.
TindaleJ. A.NeysmithS. M.Economic justice in later life: A Canadian perspective. Soc. Justice Res. 1: 461–476, 1987.
42.
KatzM. B.The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare. Pantheon Books, New York, 1989.
43.
MinklerM.Generational equity and the new victim blaming. In Critical Perspectives on Aging, edited by MinklerM.EstesC. L., Baywood, Amityville, N.Y., 1991, in press.
44.
DanielsN.Am I My Parents Keeper?Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1988.
45.
ColeT.The spectre of old age: History, politics and culture in America. Tikkun3: 14–18, 93–95, 1988.
46.
LammR.Long time dying. The New Republic, August 27, 1984, pp. 2–23.
47.
NeysmithS. M.Social policy implications of an aging society. In Aging in Canada, Ed. 2, edited by MarshallV., pp. 586–597. Fitzhenry and Whiteside, Toronto, 1987.
48.
HolsteinM.MinklerM.The short life and painful death of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act. Int. J. Health Serv. 21: 1–16, 1991.
49.
CampbellR.BrodyE. M.Women's changing roles and help to the elderly: Attitudes of women in the United States and Japan. Gerontologist25: 584–592, 1985.
50.
NeysmithS. M.Dependency among Third World elderly: A need for new direction in the nineties. Int. J. Health Serv. 20: 687–690, 1990.
51.
OsterbuschS.Community care policies and gender justice. Int. J. Health Serv. 17: 217–232, 1987.
52.
ArendellT.EstesC. L.Older women in the post-Reagan era. Int. J. Health Serv. 21: 59–73, 1991.
53.
MoodyH. R.Abundance of Life: Human Development Policies for an Aging Society. Columbia University Press, New York, 1988.
