Money, Markets, and Morals

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Sociology Advanced Seminar: Conventional accounts tend to mobilize moral arguments to either justify or vilify markets. This course offers a different sociological lens to explore how money and morals constantly intermingle and sustain each other, with a focus on the cultural dimensions of economic activity. We will read some of the most exciting empirical studies on a broad range of economic actions, including pricing, lending, paying, and gifting, to study how questions of legitimacy, fairness, and dignity shape these diverse realms of economic exchange. In each case, we will examine how social inequalities mark both our exchanges and moral boundaries. Throughout the course, we will explore questions such as: How do economic and cultural values structure prices of goods and services? Do monetary transactions, in turn, re-organize the moral categories that guide our social lives and political actions? What happens when money mingles with what we consider priceless domains like life and nature? How do morally contested markets, like life insurance, human organs, and marijuana, emerge or fail to emerge? Why do we tend to justify inequality in some markets but deem it unfair in others? We will conclude by considering the moral implications of digital monies and algorithms, which increasingly structure contemporary economic exchange.