The moral economy1998

"In the moral economy, John P.Powelson argues that laws do no more than consolidate what a society has realized culturally. No major historic reform has lasted more than a few decades unless consensus on it had been achieved. Instead, reform arises our of the many positive-sum potentials in the world social order, which intelligent people will find so long as no one can stop them. As citizens defy central authority to seek mutual goals at grassroots levels, moral economic behavior becomes grounded in a balance of power among social groupings and spreads upward. Organized into groups, people hold each other accountable for their contracts instead of depending on a groverment of international agency to impose morality upon them." -- From publisher's description.