The continuing relevance of Fred Hirsch's insights on markets and morality

• Autor(a) principal: Carvalho, L. F.
• Data de Publicação: 2005
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/515
• topic: Fred Hirsch; Markets; Morality; Neoliberalism

This article argues for the continuing relevance of Fred Hirsch’s The Social Limits to Growth (1976), valued as a critical analysis of the consequences of markets on the moral fabric of society. Two concepts that are fundamental to Hirsch – the commercialization bias and the depleting moral legacy – will be scrutinised. We further claim that this book, by emphasizing the tendency to market expansion and the corresponding commodification of increasing spheres of social life, while simultaneously acknowledging its adverse consequences on the motivational appeal of social and moral norms, offers insights that are more relevant today then when it was conceived.