Care Ethics and Markets: A View from Feminist Economics

Abstract

Feminist economics, in its contemporary incarnation, began to bloom with the 1993 publication of Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics (Ferber and Nelson). Since then, many strains of feminist thinking have developed around issues of the definition, methodology, philosophy, and policy application of economics. One key insight has been the recognition of the mythical nature of the rational, autonomous “economic man” who was said to inhabit and operate the free market automaton. The crumbling of this image challenges theories of business and markets that see business as no more than rule-bound (i.e., bound to a supposed legal requirement to maximize profits, or to the “dictates of the market”)—and opens the way for serious new thinking about business ethics, responsibility, and care. In this essay, I will review these literatures, describing developments on topics including: how, historically, the images of “economic man” and machine-like market behavior came to gain credence; the role of masculinist intellectual biases in the continuing acceptance of the idea that economies are run by physics-like economic “laws;” alternative views of human nature emphasizing the many dimensions of relationality, including individuality, connection, interdependence, “power over”, “power to”, care, and responsibility; the treatment of paid and unpaid “caring labor,” historically mostly done by women, within economics and feminist economics; alternative images of commerce as being within “the social,” and including all aspects of human functioning, including ethical and caring behavior; and, the role of continued dualistic or non-relational thinking in shaping some aspects of contemporary debates about the ethics of care and the role of business in society. Literatures to be drawn on include the feminist philosophy of science, the history of economic thought, theological views on human relations and care, feminist ethics of care, feminist economics, moral theory, psychological research on moral attitudes and behavior, research on the economics of “caring labor” (e.g. nursing), business ethics, and my own previous works on these issues.