Is inflation morally wrong?
Workers think so. Economists disagree
![Illustration of a workman and a businessman on a see-saw. The workman is at the bottom, the businessman at the top.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240427_FND000.jpg)
Where other historians saw a mob of hungry peasants, E.P. Thompson saw resistance to capitalism. Studying England’s 18th-century food riots, the Marxist historian coined the term “moral economy”. The rioters, he argued, were not motivated purely by empty bellies, but by a belief that the bakers, farmers and millers had violated paternalist customs, which suggested they should limit their profit, sell locally and not hold back grain. Gradually, Thompson argued, the moral economy was being displaced by a market economy, in which prices follow the amoral logic of supply and demand, rather than ideas of what would be a “fair price” in times of scarcity.
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This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Ups and downs”
Finance & economics April 27th 2024
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