ABSTRACT

Our first quotation above illustrates the impossibility of keeping cultures and systems compartmentalized in a globalized environment. It also illustrates the role of religion as a moral-practical challenge to the dominant logics of global systems. In this case Islamic morality is used to challenge the economic imperative to offer insurance products at the lowest premium in a competitive health insurance market (the American model), with the side-effect or ‘residual problem’ that liability is limited. It also illustrates the social and cultural construction of markets, for if a product is socially or culturally unacceptable then it won’t sell, no matter how ‘efficient’ it is; although, of course, society and culture themselves also change in response to systemic influences.