ABSTRACT
Classical sociology addressed the problem of value-integration in line with industrial society’s embrace of capitalist market economies. Thus, for Marx the problem of values bore upon the problem of the law of value, for Durkheim the moral vision of organic solidarity presupposed the curbing of market anomie, while Weber lamented the morally vacant efficiency of instrumental rationality at odds with a realist but ethically principled action. The current financial meltdown and the concomitant social dislocations across national, regional and global levels force contemporary social theory to reconsider the ‘embeddedness’ argument that seeks to reincorporate markets into a social logic of institutions (Hegel, Durkheim, Polanyi, Parsons, Honneth). This shift is essential if a normatively justifiable alternative to obstacles against ideals of ‘self-fulfilment’ (Marx, Gewirth) in the domain of work and employment is worthy of reconsideration. I shall argue that Sen’s CA offers a promising project with a view to moralizing markets as he draws on both Adam Smith and Karl Marx. To this end I develop four ideal-types of ‘economy–society’ interchanges and I suggest that Sen, not without tensions though, opts for a moralization of the market thesis, close to the fusion between liberalism and socialism.
