Search results

In the first of the eleven essays making up this book, Bevir and Trentmann state the perspective unifying them. Against the rise of a “neo-liberal discourse” idealizing the market as a beneficial coordinating mechanism, Bevir and Trentmann point to the embeddedness of markets.¹ In particular, they assert their cultural embeddedness, arguing that “how precisely any particular state or market operates will depend on how it is governed by a host of beliefs, discourses, practices, and institutions” (p. 10). The first goal of the volume is to provide historical case studies illustrating the richness of past conceptualizations of the relationship between society, markets, and the state (p. 2). The second goal is to reconsider the role played by “agency” in the history of capitalism.² The editors argue against Karl Polanyi that liberals have not always been in favour of markets irrespective of social and environmental concerns, and that peasants and rural elites have not always defended traditional forms of social coordination. The general point is conveyed by the following passage: “The question was, for all these groups, not simply one of support or resistance to markets but about how markets should be embedded within social and political contexts. Social groups and intellectual traditions that were ambivalent about markets also helped to shape the contours and dynamics of capitalist societies” (p. 4). In other words, liberal market economies “arose as embedded within the context of particular types of civil society, which were themselves a contingent product of European history” (pp. 7–8).

Seligman noted four topics that Rogers investigated in this pamphlet: the principles that regulate the exchange value of commodities; the wage theory; the incidence of taxes on agricultural products and an analysis of the economic consequences of a commutation of the tithe. This last topic Rogers treated mathematically. Seligman asserted that the appearance of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy in 1820…[gave] rise to an active discussion on some of the fundamental topics in dispute between Ricardo, Say and Malthus…. Most of the essays of the time, however, were concerned with the discussion of the nature and measure of value, and of these the majority based themselves on the theory advocated by Ricardo and McCulloch. (1903, pp. 351–352)

The received wisdom underlying many guides to ethical research is that information is private, and research is consequently seen as a trespass on the private sphere. Privacy demands control; control requires consent; consent protects privacy. This is not wrong in every case, but it is over-generalised. The distorted perspective leads to some striking misinterpretations of the rights of research participants, and the duties of researchers. Privacy is not the same thing as data protection; consent is not adequate as a defence of privacy; seeking consent is not always required or appropriate. Beyond that, the misinterpretation can lead to conduct which is unethical, limiting the scope of research activity, obstructing the flow of information in a free society, and failing to recognise what researchers’ real duties are.