The Relationship of Morals and Markets Today: A Review of Recent Scholarship on the Culture of Economic Life

This article surveys recent trends in scholarship on capitalism within the fields of history, cultural sociology, and religious studies, highlighting the ways that scholars working in each of these disciplines have shifted their methodological and substantive approaches so as to foreground the cultural and moral, rather than technical, aspects of economic life. In light of our current moment of cultural reflection upon the character and future of capitalism, this article suggests that this scholarship contains valuable resources for enriching both public and academic conversations about the relationship between capitalism and the moral life. This article concludes by identifying two promising areas for further, and interdisciplinary, scholarly attention.