The Sunaks, EP Thompson and the moral economy in 2022
The late historian EP Thompson developed the concept of a moral economy. It related to eighteenth century English society and an idea of fair prices for things like bread and beer. The law at the time had some space for such concepts and there were Assizes of Bread and Ale that endeavoured to fix fair prices, although these tended to be of more consequence in times of dearth.
Thompson warned against transposing his concept of the moral economy into later centuries, as he had rooted it historically in the eighteenth century. However in an essay in his collection Customs in Common where he reviewed the moral economy he noted that the concept had now escaped into the wild as it were and he was no longer responsible for its use.
In fact Thompson himself broke his own rules and used the moral economy in the context of the 1984-5 miner’s strike and the NHS.
A modern usage would certainly be around things like fairness for ticket prices, for companies paying taxes and so on, but it should be underlined that the practice in the eighteenth century was a robust one.
The middleman who was trying to fix the price of wheat for bread might be asked nicely, but if nothing happened, a demonstration was got up to exert pressure. That usually worked but if it didn’t the process of what Thompson referred to as ‘collective bargaining by riot’ was by no means unknown.
Ringleaders of such activities might be hanged, but mostly they weren’t, and actually the strength of the protest underlined that the moral economy was not a fluffy protest but deadly serious
Perhaps its time to apply the moral economy test to the activities of the Sunaks when it comes to taxation and Non Dom status..
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