Capitalism's Moral Economy
How have people historically sought to make economic markets fairer?
From business and its social responsibilities to how moral ideas change business organization, my research probes the moral economy of capitalism.
Exploring how historical actors sought to make business fairer and more socially responsible suggests possibilities for the present
The History of Business and its Social Responsibilities
My research on the history of business and its social responsibilities reconstructs public expectations of corporate conduct from the early modern period to the present day. How have these responsibilities changed over time and why?
My publications develop a model to understand this dynamic and the "social life" of the corporation, for example, in a recent article, The Hudson's Bay Company, Social Legitimacy, and the Political Economy of Eighteenth-Century Empire.
These questions are also explored in a volume of essays by leading business historians that I have co-edited with William Pettigrew, A History of Socially Responsible Business, c.1600–1950 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017).
I am now exploring the twentieth-century history of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from both the perspective of its critics like Milton Friedman and its early pioneers, such as Howard Bowen.
Market Morality and its History
Ideas of market morality and fairness can have real effect on policies and the law. My research questions how people think about fairness in the market over time. Should all market actors play by the same rules? If so, what are the rules? How are they interpreted and enforced?
Explore my new article in the journal Enterprise & Society that links moral ideas with the campaign for law reform in England during the 1840s and 1850s. The modern corporation with limited liability emerged from these efforts in 1855 along with the legal recognition of co-operatives in 1852.