The Moral Economy of Violence: An Analytical and Conceptual Discussion

Abstract

Moral economy studies political economy from an anthropological perspective as it deals with practices and institutions that regulate society. It is an approach that not only integrates the traditional object of political economy – relations between capital, class and state – but also provides an anthological tool to scrutinise the way it is embedded. On the one hand it advocates for a grounded understanding of the global political-economic process, while on the other hand it is used to analyse the political culture, norms and expectation of the groups involved; the power relations between the state and the elites; and the values that guide and sustain livelihood practices. It is helpful in examining and interpreting moments of ruptures where the structural inequalities particularly caused by capital accumulation and supported or favoured through state regulation are metabolised through norms, meaning and practice, which may strengthen patterns of capital accumulation that regulate social structure but can also alter them. It is true that at times the concept also seems to valorise violence and raises the question as to whether non-violence or the Gandhian approach to protest or civil disobedience could be a means to achieve the objective as discussed in the moral economy of violence. It thus offers a theoretical tool to identify the goals and objective of the people involved and offers political theorists and scholars a paradigm to build a political system that addresses social, political and economic issues both at the micro and macro level with the possibility of being complementary to liberalism, socialism, Marxism and other political arrangements. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Ravi Saxena; individual chapters, the contributors.