Moral economies of distribution and redistribution in Africa

Introduction

During the last fifteen years the fairness of capitalism has increasingly come under question – again. Especially the global financial crisis of 2008 and the spiralling of inequalities ever since have intensified debates, with outrage about, for instance, the grandiose yachts and private jets of the super-rich and the unequal distribution of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Concerns about these inequalities are no longer articulated by the political fringes only, but also by powerful politicians, religious leaders, and opinion-makers.¹ Even in the gatherings of the rich, such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, global inequalities are officially discussed. Yet, notwithstanding the mainstream attention devoted to inequality and, especially, poverty, and how to reduce it, the question of whether ‘we can afford the rich’ (e.g. Hildyard 2024; Robeyns 2024; Sayer 2014) rarely becomes a conference theme. However, as Graham Harrison (2011, 2) argues:

If poverty of the kind found in much of Africa – as well as other parts of the world – is both morally and politically unacceptable, and if poverty is relational rather than an ‘innocent’ or ‘original’ situation, then we might think about poverty reduction and wealth reduction as interlinked.

Instead of acknowledging the interlinkages between poverty and wealth, though, public debates about the fundamentals of socioeconomic inequality, distribution and redistribution, tend to be one-sided. Whereas redistribution is increasingly publicly discussed – in debates on taxation and public welfare provision, for example – distribution is more taken-for-granted and generally well removed from political debate. Redistribution, which the wealthy often equally oppose, however, becomes an issue because distributive outcomes are highly unbalanced. Yet, despite concerns voiced about wealth disparities (e.g. Oxfam 2023) – expressed, for example, in debates about the 0.1%, banker bonuses, and high salaries for CEOs – there appears to be relatively little public debate about ways to fundamentally reverse distributive outcomes.

It is a striking feature of contemporary forms of capitalism – around the world – that the dynamics of distribution are relatively stable and generally not challenged in major ways. Public debates, protests, and strikes that (indirectly) address the unfairness of distributive outcomes exist (e.g. 2011 Occupy Wall Street, 2024 Kenya Finance Bill protests), yet the rich and powerful often manage to contain the expansion and intensification of public (moral) debate about structurally altering distributive outcomes. This state of public debate, as the various case studies on the African continent discussed in this special issue highlight,² does not imply that many actors accept or endorse the current state of distribution. Even if not always articulated publicly, broad sections of society across class, gender, age, and ethnicity are arguably very much aware of distributive inequalities and the strangeness and unfairness of these.

Aims and contributions of the special issue

Recent scholarship highlights that parallel to high inequality an increase in moralisation about the unfairness of this inequality can be witnessed in a range of settings – this as an act of restoring order and control in the face of the erosion of the social fabric of society that follows from inequality (Kirkland, van Lange, and Goren 2024). This resonates with a resurgence of moral-economic debates on the African continent on various macro, meso, and micro levels (see also Wiegratz, Salverda, and Lanzano 2024). Debates around, for example, land reform (e.g. Kepe and Hall 2020) or redistribution of wealth (e.g. Bracking 2019) are often articulated around the interrogation of the morality of the current capitalist order. They question existing economic structures and practices, especially regarding what is seen as wrong, unacceptable, unfair, improper, and abnormal in the economy.

Following from this, a few years back, in 2020, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, explicitly made a ‘call for a “new moral economy” that has people and their welfare at its centre’,³ though exactly how this should be realised was less evident. Notably, these debates about the morality and (un)fairness of the economy/capitalism never ‘end’ or are concluded but move in waves. They flare up, for example, in the run-up to national elections or after yet another super scandal about the rich and powerful, the details of which are published in social or traditional media. Nonetheless, the debates highlight the persistence of critiques of distributive patterns of capitalism and of calls for change, such as for more extensive forms of redistribution (fairer taxation) and more adequate forms of welfare and social provision (e.g. Ferguson 2015; Wolkenhauer 2023), or for proper employment and better remuneration in the first place (e.g. Fouksman 2020).

Against this background, we argue that it is important to analyse the prevailing moral interpretations, expectations, and contestations concerning forms of economic distribution and redistribution in particular ethnographic settings on the continent. This includes an enquiry into the ways in which these moral expectations or contestations, for example, are articulated across scale, from the international and national to the local level, including in less public and more elusive manifestations of social life such as in settings of household, family, and kin. The nature of (re)distributive ‘logics’ is at stake in many common everyday examples of economic life on the continent; for example, when waged workers are expected to support unemployed dependents (see Callebert 2014, and, on the so-called ‘black tax’, Mhlongo 2019),⁴ when young members of a lineage contest the elders over unfair access to land and natural resources in rural areas (Chauveau et al. 2005; see also Amanor and Ubink 2008), or when rich(er) actors provide minimal financial assistance to poor(er) actors to deflect further redistributive claims (Neves and Du Toit 2012). The papers in this issue build upon such public, private, and scholarly debates and aim to contribute to and advance relevant longstanding discussions in African studies such as those concerning the embedded character of everyday economic realities (e.g. Bolt 2014; Hull and James 2012).

Further, the papers offer analyses of dynamics of socioeconomic inequalities (and their moral economies) that often remain neglected and/or obscured in scholarly (and public) debates. The special issue highlights how perceptions of the fairness of macro trends and patterns that characterise national and global political economies under capitalism are interwoven with contexts situated at the micro level of social norms, practices, experiences, and expectations. Though obscured in much of the scholarship in economics, concerns about (re)distribution at macro and micro levels inform the everyday economy all around the world; they also feature as a recurrent motif in many fairy tales, with the greedy facing punishment by either poverty or bad luck, while the generous are rewarded with prosperity and good fortune (Henningsen 2001, 26). The contributions in this special issue thus take a closer, grounded look at how actors in a variety of economic settings on the African continent produce, perceive, juggle with, and address various dynamics of economic (re)distribution, and related pressures, duties, tensions, and dilemmas. The moral concerns voiced by protagonists in these settings furthermore provide valuable insights about what they perceive as fair and unfair regarding existing economic structures, relations, practices, and outcomes.

To facilitate understanding of the aims and concepts that animate this special issue, we will first take a closer look at definitions of distribution and redistribution, and how (re)distributive patterns in societies have been shaped by moral-economic and political-economic forces and positions – justifying or contesting the fairness of these patterns. Following from this, we will argue that the concept of ‘moral economy’ is a useful lens to investigate how dominant and non-dominant notions and views in society regarding matters of acceptability, appropriateness, and fairness in the economy shape (re)distribution realities – and efforts to change them – in a range of settings.

The details of the moral views, opinions, and arguments differ from case to case, as we will discuss with reference to the papers of the issue thereafter. Yet all papers highlight that: (i) distribution and/or redistribution evoke strong moral sentiments, namely, that (re)distribution matters and is a key pillar of economic life; (ii) literally all actors involved on the various sides of the real or desired (re)distribution puzzle de facto rely on moral arguments and/or justifications in their challenges to or defence of (re)distributive realities, that is, they are all everyday moral economists of sorts. This, evidently, is not an issue in the African context only. In Europe for example, top managers in the UK effectively defend their incomes including bonuses – namely, their capturing of an extremely high share of the distributive outcomes – with justifications based on claims regarding their performance, skills or talent. In short then, these few examples as well as the introduction and papers of this issue highlight that the moral dynamics and complexities of (re)distribution are worthy of analytical attention. We argue that enhancing our understanding of moral views, debates, and contestations of capitalist orders of distribution and redistribution – including the commonsense and taken-for-granted parts as well as the much more fragile, unpopular, and contested parts of dominant moral economies of (re)distribution – is essential for a better understanding of societies and economies in Africa and beyond. The contributions are thus of relevance to African and global moral-economy scholarship and public debates (see also Makovicky, Wiegratz, and Kofti 2024).

Moral legitimation of distribution and redistribution

Distribution and redistribution have been at the centre of many economic debates – and respective interventions from various left, right, liberal, and conservative political camps – over the last centuries, often with moral undertones (see also Stevens 2023). Importantly, the focus of these debates has been on macro, often national, levels. Distribution, in this context, is about the distributive outcomes of an economy, such as that university-educated professionals generally receive higher salaries, and as such a larger share of the distributional outcomes, than professionals with other (blue-collar) qualifications. Here, distribution is about the structure of a given economic system, or mode of production; with specific patterns of ownership/control of labour, land, and capital shaping the (pre-tax) distributive order. There is a tendency in mainsteam (economic) debates to present distributive patterns as neutral outcomes of abstract market operations, even if these outcomes have been socio-politically and morally constituted (and contested), both implicitly and explicitly, in long historical processes. Outcomes, then, are shaped by power, class, and conflict and are neither neutral nor natural or apolitical.

With his objections to the idleness of landlords and their rent-seeking, Adam Smith (1776) voiced a moral opinion in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, even if implicitly, about distributional outcomes, which according to him should favour creating wealth. Building upon Smith’s understanding of the economy, however, laissez-faire economics has presented distributive dynamics as neutral, notwithstanding that its adherents do not appear completely oblivious to a need to justify unequal distributive patterns. A certain level of inequality resulting from the fact that capital is left unchecked is presented as fair, because eventually all will benefit, as proponents of ‘trickle-down economics’ would argue. Tellingly, nonetheless, the adherents tend to have strong moral opinions about who exactly is allowed to capture a larger share of the distributional outcomes. Smith’s objections to landlords and monopolies, which are perceived to have unjust control over distributive outcomes at the expense of others, are exemplary in this respect – with the same arguments and concerns mirrored in today’s debates about rentier capitalism (e.g. Christophers 2020).

Simultaneously, Smith perceived the share labour obtained as a relatively neutral element within the equation, emerging from the ‘objective’ costs of subsistence. Surplus/profit, he argued, was the residual after wages had been paid (Patterson 2012; Smith 1776). Karl Marx (e.g. 1867; and with Friedrich Engels, 1848), however, showed that wages and profit are determined by historical conditions rather than subsistence needs. Accordingly, distribution outcomes often favour the owners of capital – and means of production – at the expense of labour. As contemporary examples equally demonstrate, to rebalance distributive outcomes these unequal conditions need to be addressed. Yet, as Thomas C. Patterson (2012) points out, neoclassical economists have largely refuted this labour theory of value and instead have continued to convey the message that the share labour obtains is the result of abstract (and assumed to be neutral and thus fair) logics of supply and demand in the market. This continues to naturalise and render normal the moral economy of distribution in the capitalist economy. Notably, whatever scholars are pointing out about the importance of addressing distributive imbalances to reverse inequality has arguably not shifted the distributional status quo – in terms of government policy – very much.

Distribution is never ‘neutral’

The various stances highlight the – original – involvement of moral arguments and contestations in the shaping of distributive orders in earlier phases of capitalism. Marxian critique of the pre-distributive logics of capital, with control over, and ‘ownership’ of, the production process, however, have since the consolidation of the neoliberal consensus been pushed to the margins of the political and scholarly spectrum. Thomas Piketty (2020, 528), for instance, argues that ex-post redistribution is not sufficient to reverse inequalities:

[r]edistribution is essential, of course, but one also needs to think about policies capable of modifying the primary distribution, which means making deep changes to the legal, fiscal, and educational system to give the poorest people access to better paying jobs and ownership of property.

That the legal system is part and parcel of these outcomes is highlighted in Katharina Pistor’s (2019) Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality. To alter distribution, she argues, reversing inequalities in the legal system is essential, as legal codes determine who gets what. Yet even though her arguments have been well received in scholarly circles, arguments like hers and those advanced by Piketty have hardly become hegemonic in the political field. Achieving a significant shift in distributional patterns in favour of non-elites remains an uphill battle given the continuing dominance of (neo)liberal thinking. This confirms, to a large extent, Andrew Sayer’s (2023) argument that once certain economic forms become established, normative questions tend to be forgotten. As he notes,

in everyday life, it is not questioned why workers should have no ownership rights over the goods they make, or why shareholders who have acquired their shares second hand should have rights to dividends from companies despite having contributed nothing to them. (Sayer 2023, 1472)

A lack of profound debate about distributive ‘logics’, however, does not imply, as we particularly highlight in this special issue, that many actors do not have strong moral opinions about the fairness of respective distributive outcomes – as the argument that parallel to high inequality increasing moralisation can be witnessed also highlights (Kirkland, van Lange, and Goren 2024). Demands for higher salaries for ordinary employees (not of CEOs) challenge distributive orders explicitly, while other debates, such as those concerning (communal) land ownership in African settings (which, as e.g. Peters 2009; Walker and Dubb 2013 point out, have their own challenges), show that other forms of distribution are imagined. However, the fundamental structure of private ownership (and dominance by capital) is hardly challenged. Instead, moral objections to distributive outcomes are generally channelled, in the absence of meaningful change of distributive patterns, towards redistribution.

A focus on redistribution – instead

Much more than distribution, redistribution encompasses practices and mechanisms that deliberately transfer (‘post’-distribution) some resources from one category or actor to another. These transfers of, for example, income or profits come with different, but typically ‘corrective’ justifications, levels of intentionality, and engagement with distributive outcomes. At a first glance, redistribution may be associated with the political sphere trying, through actions of governments or political organisations, to deliberately act upon and ‘adjust’ distributional outcomes – that is, the realm associated with ‘the economy’. According to Karl Polanyi (1944), for instance, redistribution occurs when a central sovereign collects and redistributes resources in a particular geographical constituency. A good example is that of modern states, which – to different extents – have institutionalised redistribution ‘in the policies of the modern welfare state’ (Koos and Sachweh 2019, 794). In this case, taxation is the most ‘straightforward’ tool to obtain the funding for altering distributive outcomes, though other forms are possible too. Anthropologists, for instance, have discussed redistributive activities associated with chiefly authority outside the political sphere defined by modern states (Patterson 2012, 195). By and large, though, redistribution is associated with central authorities. We argue, however, that redistribution should be defined more broadly.

Issues of distribution and redistribution can be in the foreground or in the background of social life; it can also work differently at micro and macro scales of observation and of socio-political discourse. In other words, they can be framed in more explicit, public, and centrally organised ways, such as in the case of taxation; or, conversely, in implicit, private, and individual ways. In addition to state involvement in the redistribution process that is official and collective, other forms of redistribution (and related demands) tend to occur in less formal and more private settings, including in realms outside market structures. Philanthropy, for example, indicates that redistribution occurs without a central organisation, in this case of the wealthy who might feel that they must ‘redistribute’ in response to societal concerns about the (unfair) part of the distributive outcomes they bring home. Particularly in times of social crises and unrest, wealthy elites – like states – may also use redistribution to quell the potential for uprising among the poor (Acemoglu and Robinson 2001, 939). The wealthy thus use philanthropy for their political as well as business aims, such as to limit debates about rebalancing distributive – pre-philanthropy – outcomes (see on philanthrocapitalism in Africa, e.g. Bond, Pheko, and Lenferna 2023; Iheduru forthcoming).

What is more, and of particular centrality in this special issue, is that in many smaller, often informal and private settings, actors are confronted with redistributive demands. They may face moral demands after they have brought ‘home’ their part of the distributive outcomes (in the form of wages, incomes, rents or profits), such as in the case of social pressure on wealthier individuals to share their profits with kin and other affiliates. Indeed, as James Ferguson (2015, 94) argues while reflecting on transformations of labour and relations of dependence in southern Africa, for many people ‘surviving’ is ‘in large measure about accessing or making claims on the resources of others’. Refusing to comply with these demands can have repercussions for the better-off. When group leaders do not redistribute, ‘eating the money’, namely, keeping the larger share of distributional outcomes to oneself, can be seen as an immoral act (Eyre 2023, 216). These forms of redistribution are not always legible by analyses at the macro level, partly because they do not necessarily involve the circulation of money and can instead involve the redistribution of food or other goods (Gudeman 2001, 63). Furthermore, in the case of non-market as well as family settings, ‘redistribution’ cannot always clearly be separated from reciprocity (Koos and Sachweh 2019, 794; see also Polanyi 1944). We acknowledge overlaps between the two concepts, particularly also because the involvement of immaterial (emotional) support and connections may shape interactions – and thus more easily confirm ‘transactions’ deemed as reciprocity. Nonetheless, we consider it relevant to broaden the notion of redistribution beyond orthodox understandings and refer it also to transactions taking place at smaller scales. This is because redistribution more obviously than reciprocity refers to transactions between actors in unequal positions, often from the wealthy to the less wealthy, and thus is implicitly embedded in moral opinions about distributive outcomes.

Distributive and redistributive entanglements

Both distribution and redistribution are shaped by various political-economic scales and moral frames and decisions, even when these are not always explicitly expressed. Distinctions between the two may not always be evidently clear, even. Depending on the scale at which we observe economic relations, what is framed as redistribution at one level may be distribution at another – and, as such, may become the basis for further redistributive demands and practices. What at a global scale could be interpreted as redistribution, for instance development aid or philanthropic donations from charities and foundations, may become a ‘given’ (as e.g. income) at another, smaller scale (e.g. at the level of aid recipients), and, as such, considered to be part of the distributive outcomes. Notions of distribution and redistribution thus also depend on the scale from which they are approached. Further, distribution and redistribution can evoke both (national) economic policies and the more elusive circulation of goods and resources, thus shaping the fabric of society. The polysemy associated with this multi-scalar use of the concepts is particularly fruitful to stimulate reflections around the nature of (re)distribution and the conditions for its emergence as a shared (or contested) political goal or social duty, among members of social groups, local settings or societies at large.

Presenting distributive outcomes as ‘neutral’ is in this sense a moral and political act in itself. Openly acknowledging that distributive outcomes are not neutral, but in essence both political-economic and moral phenomena, would be an explicit invitation to discuss what is considered right or wrong regarding distribution. The possibility of such an unpacking of the moral characteristics and underpinnings of distribution under capitalism is something that key beneficiaries of major distributive patterns – and ruling classes generally – are arguably keen to foreclose.

Starting from a broader notion of (re)distribution, accordingly, allows us to draw attention to how actors’ personal moral considerations about the (un)fairness of (‘neutral’) distributive outcomes at larger scales (e.g. global and national economy) shape concerns, actions, and interactions about redistribution at smaller scales. This may lead actors into morally ambiguous and conflictual terrain, as they may appropriate what they consider their moral share, even if their practices of ‘redistribution’ may be deemed illegal and/or immoral by others. In certain forms of redistribution, paying attention to moral dynamics, concerns, and justifications provides valuable insights into how actors perceive, strategise, and act vis-à-vis more structural distribution outcomes as well as very concrete, local disparities. In other instances, though, demands for redistribution operate at a more personal level and refrain from structural critique. This, though, also provides relevant insights into the reproduction of material inequality and their moral-economic underpinnings. To more fully understand the operations of a range of moral values, perceptions, modes of reasoning, and contestations involved in shaping the patterns of distributive and redistributive outcomes, we consider the concept of ‘moral economy’ a particularly useful heuristic tool.

Moral economy

In line with increasing moral concerns about capitalism around the world it is not surprising that the concept of moral economy is receiving renewed attention (e.g. Carrier 2018; Edelman 2012; Hann 2018; Palomera and Vetta 2016; Salverda 2021), also to inform studies on the relations between morals and capitalism/markets (e.g. Berger and Przyrembel 2019; Makovicky, Wiegratz, and Kofti 2024; Schiller-Merkens and Balsiger 2019; Wiegratz 2016). Within African studies, moral economy has equally been used in various ways, ranging from the exploration of the legitimacy of illicit practices such as corruption, fraud or theft and opioid use, to the analysis of social movements, protests, and food security (see, among others: Hickel 2014; Kimambo et al. 2008; Klantschnig and Dele-Adedeji 2021; Ndhlovu 2024; Newell 2006; Olivier de Sardan 1999; Pierce 2016; Prince 2012).

In the context of the theme of this special issue, the notion of moral economy is highly applicable to investigating moral interpretations, reasonings, practices, and outcomes of distribution and redistribution, even if in the existing scholarship these moral dimensions of (re)distribution are not always explicitly addressed. Following from Edward P. Thompson (1971) and James Scott’s (1976) endeavour to ‘understand the mutual obligations and responsibilities that render exploitation acceptable, at least for a time, and enable particular forms of socioeconomic differentiation to endure’ (Narotzky and Besnier 2014, 7), more recent works inspired by the concept of moral economy have significantly expanded its use. In reviewing some of them, Didier Fassin (2009, 1264) has attempted a synthesis by placing an emphasis – in line with his broader anthropological work on moralities – on the moral, and ‘taking some distance from a strictly economic reading’.

We subscribe to Fassin’s point that the concept should not be used exclusively in reference to the moral critiques and resistance of the oppressed. ‘Moral economies’ do not stand in contrast with ‘amoral’ or ‘immoral’ economies allegedly inhabited by utilitarian or self-interested agents. Indeed, the most recent reflections inspired by the concept have rightly paid attention to the moral justifications, beliefs, and conflicts involving actors in different positions in class society, showing that all economic discourses and practices – including those of powerful actors and dominant classes – are, in different ways, socially and morally embedded (Makovicky, Wiegratz, and Kofti 2024; Salverda 2021; Whyte and Wiegratz 2016; Wiegratz 2016; Wiegratz, Salverda, and Lanzano 2024).

Even if we share concerns about the negative impact of capitalism and increasing inequalities, we are wary of (i) arguments that contrast current economic realities with a longing for virtues of the past (e.g. Akrivou and Sison 2016), namely, virtues claimed to be (more) prevalent in or informing earlier phases of capitalism. Such arguments are part of debates concerning a return-to-fairness of the ‘golden-era’ capitalism, which was often arguably less virtuous and fair, especially at its global totality, than proponents here make it. We are also wary of (ii) calls from actors like Cyril Ramaphosa or Bernie Sanders for a ‘new moral economy’ that is juxtaposed against an existing capitalism ‘without’ morals – in line with one key strand of moral-economy orthodoxy in the scholarship.⁵ Notwithstanding our support for different economic models, presenting current forms of capitalism as devoid of morals in order to make a call for a ‘moral economy’ is a false dichotomy. It does not do justice to the empirical realities that morals are key to the persistence of gross socioeconomic inequalities and corresponding social harms under capitalism, and to capitalist social order generally (Wiegratz 2019).

Finally, we also share concerns expressed by some scholars (for example, Hann 2018) regarding the risks of stretching the concept to the point of losing its heuristic significance. In his appeal to recentre the reflexion on a substantivist view of the economy, James G. Carrier (2018, 23) suggests adopting what we could call an ‘interactionist’ approach, focusing on the moral ‘obligations (…) that arise from interactions between people’, and more particularly from repeated economic transactions that generate in the participants moral expectations and judgements about each other’s behaviour without eclipsing their economic nature – namely, the satisfaction of needs or the pursuit of profit. Overall, we regard the current phase of moral-economy research and debate, including current scholarly disagreements, as highly productive rather than a phase of conceptual disorientation.

Moral economy of (re)distribution

In this special issue, our analytical interest is particularly on how the concept can help to obtain a better understanding of distribution and redistribution. It allows us to grasp, for instance, how imaginaries about distributive outcomes shape forms of redistribution in smaller, micro settings of economic interaction. As Marxian and Polanyian approaches demonstrate, distribution is never neutral, but always socio-politically and morally constituted and contested. Scholars employing the concept of moral economy, in addition, have highlighted how all social actors hold moral opinions about the (un)fairness of distributive outcomes. Even if possibilities to reverse these outcomes may vary greatly, these moral opinions (and corresponding justifications) deserve analytical attention. They influence, for example, how actors are positioned within debates about redistributive patterns, and the respective (larger) politics of conflicts, contestation, and alliances for (no) change.

In the works of Thompson (1971) and Scott (1976), workers and peasants voice moral opinions about distribution outcomes in their respective societies, more or less explicitly. For instance, they expect the rich – because they are rich – to support them in times of difficulty. Additionally relevant is to acknowledge, as Thomas McNamara (2019) argues, that next to vertical resource redistribution there is also horizontal distribution (somewhat similar to the notion of reciprocity). McNamara demonstrates that rural Malawians with shared socioeconomic backgrounds are involved in redistributive practices, often with (indirect) moral arguments that accept some redistribution requests and reject others. More specifically, he (2019, 47) points out that ‘no woman ever overtly denied resources to her peers. Rather, she would explain that she had nothing herself or that she was saving her food for a laudable event like a church service’. In a similar vein, Kirsten McNeill and Rachael Pierotti (2023, 162) highlight that individuals apply various strategies to reduce their ‘availability’ of cash, for instance through hiding income, which they use to their advantage vis-à-vis actors they consider excessively demanding. Redistribution is thus often a morally complex matter that needs careful navigation. That said, obligations between peers are about much more than strategies to navigate or avoid requests for redistribution; as Carrier (2018) shows, they can also foster solidarity, trust, and long-termism.

Following from the conceptual debates (which, as stated, at times include disagreements), it is evident that the moral-economy scholarship has been enriched and revitalised in the last decade. It has allowed us to better understand, explore, and unpack a range of economic practices and relationships and usefully expand and sharpen the analytical lens, also regarding major issues of hegemony and moral leadership of ruling classes in capitalism, namely, the politics of moral orders and moral economies of capitalism (Bloom 2017, 2023; Ferguson 2006; Wiegratz 2016). In this special issue, we apply the concept of moral economy to the everyday operations and grammars of (re)distribution, as we are of the view that it is a relevant heuristic tool for investigating the moral phenomena – including variations, complexities, nuances, and changes – of distribution and redistribution in many African settings and beyond.

The papers in this special issue

The articles in this special issue demonstrate various points that speak to the preceding sections. One such point is that moralities of distribution and redistribution cut across official and ‘legitimate’ economic practices and accumulation and informal settings, with at times more morally ambiguous demands for, or appropriation of, money and goods. For example, Anna Baral, Amiel Bize, and Muriel Champy demonstrate how moral notions of fairness/unfairness of (re)distribution shape settings of fraud and theft, namely, settings that could be deemed morally highly ambiguous. Gerda Kuiper and Ulrik Jennische focus on markets that may appear straightforward in terms of orthodox economics, yet which are equally shaped by a variety of moral perceptions about distribution and redistribution. Next, Daniel Jordan Smith and Alba Valenciano-Mañé address redistributive patterns between elites and non-elites, which involves both morally support for and contestations of the elites. In the multi-authored contribution, Patience Chadambuka, Felix Tombindo and Tawanda Ray Bvirindi equally address power and (re)distributive imbalances, with a particular focus on how displaced economic actors morally contest the powerful. Desalegn Amsalu subsequently deconstructs the persistent notion that wealth distribution in ‘traditional’ African societies was predominantly a moral affair. Karen Lauterbach, finally, analyses the nexus between religion and (re)distribution. By zooming in on a variety of localised cultural and political-economic settings, the articles foreground matters of the moral economy of (re)distribution that underpin everyday economic practices.

Anna Baral’s contribution, titled Keeping culture clean: ‘nested redistribution’ as a path to moral redemption in Kampala (Uganda), inaugurates the special issue. By focusing on the experiences of her interlocutors in Kisekka, a marketplace in central Kampala specialised in mechanical repairs and trade of vehicle spare parts, Baral explores the contradictory moral landscapes navigated by market workers. In Ganda culture, redistributing gains and goods ‘downwards’, for example to family members and other dependents, is encouraged as a way to simultaneously direct support ‘upwards’, reassessing submission to the Buganda kingdom – whose revival and importance for market workers is evident in the vitality of the royalist associations active in Kisekka – and channelling support and loyalty to the Baganda ethnic group as a whole.

Incentives for redistribution coexist with the negative reputation of the bayaaye (‘bad guys’) working in Kisekka, often suspected of illicit business practices, and lacking the respectability and the decency normally associated with the good citizen. In the words of Baral’s interlocutors, the integrity of (Ganda) culture must be kept clean and separate from the individualism and the ‘dirty’ business that supposedly characterise work in the market. Such an explicit argument in favour of disembedding the economy, however, is at odds with the very mechanisms that enable culturally approved practices of redistribution, leaving market workers – especially the less wealthy and more precarious – in a conundrum.

By interrogating the contradictory representations around morality and respectability, economic success and redistribution, loyalty to ‘culture’ and the group, Baral ultimately aims to reconduct them to the fundamental unity of a moral landscape characterised by the tension between individualism and sharing. Rather than functioning simply as false consciousness or as a mechanism of oppression and inequality, Ganda cultural essentialism keep market workers in a cycle – however uncertain and risky – of individual accumulation and redistribution for the greater good, where each element presupposes and morally justifies the other.

Amiel Bize, in her paper titled Wrecking: the moral economies of cargo salvage on the Northern Corridor, offers insights into moral ambiguities around ‘theft’ and salvaging, as a morally accepted form of appropriation. Bize shows that for roadside residents, crashes of cargo trucks on East Africa’s busiest commodity-transport route offer unexpected opportunities for obtaining commodities associated with (global) circuits of capital. Normally, these commodities flow by in enclosed containers on the back of cargo trucks, yet crashes provide these micro settings with moments of access to these commodities through salvaging. This is an evident moral process, as the residents legitimate their actions with reference to salvaging, while others, especially the original owners of the cargo (as well as part of the media and general public), perceive it rather as theft and immoral. The moral-economy perspective is indispensable here to go beyond the this-is-theft-and-immoral perspective and instead offer a vital and plausible moral-grammar reading of the practice.

Bize thus offers an account that allows us to see that appropriation may be informed by a widely shared ‘principle of legitimacy’. This practice, her examples illustrate, is not without moral guidance, namely, operational norms or codes of dos and don’ts: after a crash not everything is evidently available for taking, particularly in the case of severe injuries or deaths of truck drivers. In a broader perspective, then, the moment of a crash allows for a realignment of ownership, yet not without moral codes regarding under what conditions, what is acceptable, and why. Moreover, Bize shows that this realignment appears in conversation with other, often legal claims and codes. The salvagers know very well that transport companies continue to understand the cargo as private property. Yet, as Bize analyses, they lay claim to (some of this) cargo on the basis of their moral position vis-à-vis capitalist markets. Their moral argumentation regarding salvaging allows them to become part of (global) market exchange, which they usually are marginalised from. This evidently highlights that moral opinions about national and global distributive outcomes interact with the morality of (unexpected) redistribution – on a much smaller scale.

Next, Muriel Champy, in her article titled Are street children juvenile migrants? Discoveries from their earning, spending and saving practices (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso), analyses how the street children and youth of Burkina Faso – the bakoroman, as they call themselves – navigate between norms of redistribution (vis-à-vis close kin back home, for example) and that of a deviant street ethos, which is based on a rugged individualism. In ‘searching for money’ through begging, stealing, and providing petty services on the street they ensure their everyday survival, yet at the same time ponder the morality of remittances to relatives. Champy’s analysis is the more pertinent because, as she states, petty stealing and begging are often neglected by economic analysis and are rarely considered part of the economy of redistribution. Building upon meticulous accounts of the bakoroman’s income, expenses, and savings, however, she is able to provide detailed insights.

As with the case of Daniel Jordan Smith’s conspicuous consumption (see below), Champy shows how on the streets of Ouagadougou dubious money, originating from scamming and reaping ‘strangers’, can be morally legitimated through sharing with one’s entourage or kin. The bakoroman nonetheless face more difficulties in converting this into a respectable reputation vis-à-vis the wider public and intimate audiences, even if they long for it. Beneficiaries of their redistribution may accept the money, yet at the same time the bakoroman do not easily shed their criminal reputation as such – which tends to become known in their places of origin. Hence, as Champy shows,

Their claim to have joined the street in the hope of hitting the jackpot which would enable them to support their family and establish themselves as the respectable head of their own household mostly appeared as a form of wishful thinking.

In comparison to Smith’s case discussed below, there is arguably a class aspect here. Members of subaltern classes face more difficulties (and different, more limited options) than members of dominant classes in moral conversion of gains from ‘illegal’ economic activity into reputation upgrades via redistribution avenues. Hence, class, and thereby varying levels of moral and economic capital, shape respective processes and outcomes, too.

In the contribution titled The second-hand clothing trade and moral economic contestations over (re)distribution in Tanzania, Gerda Kuiper looks into imported second-hand clothes, locally known as mitumba. Despite its omnipresence, the trade has sparked much opposition in recent years, primarily from government, including an (ultimately failed) attempt by Eastern African countries to ban it. Governments argue that the import (i) harms domestic textile industries, and thus national economic development via industrialisation, and (ii) poses a threat to public health. They consider the consumption of second-hand clothes to be unpatriotic and the reliance on such used clothes to be unworthy of a self-respecting nation.

As Kuiper shows, the Tanzanian government may have – understandable – economic and moral-economic concerns about the second-hand clothing trade, yet it pays too little attention to the economic and moral considerations and motivations of consumers and traders involved. Accordingly, government policies regarding the trade tend to be at odds with prevalent societal ideas of redistributive justice, particularly since the government is seen to offer relatively little when it comes to the provision of jobs, redistribution of wealth, and improvement of livelihoods of the citizens. For traders especially, but also for consumers, the clothing trade offers an alternative economic route, with important moral meaning, value, and functions. It offers traders, for instance, an opportunity not only to obtain an income, but also to redistribute part of this income to their dependents. This allows these actors to establish themselves as worthy citizens, which is the more important for those living in or stemming from regions that are on the losing end of national distributive outcomes in the country. The redistributive realities and moral economies of the second-hand clothing trade across various micro settings demonstrate how and why the trade is widely sustained given specific political- and moral-economic underpinnings despite the strong and persistent critique and disapproval – also via moral-economic discourse – from government and industrialists. In that sense, Kuiper’s case also shows that the moral economy of (re)distribution is again a class phenomenon constituted by variety of actors from state, economy, and civil society within a particular political economy setting.

Ulrik Jennische, in his paper titled Navigating conflicting moral temporalities: gradual growth, state sovereignty and small-scale trade in urban Ghana, analyses the spatially anchored moral economy that informs small-scale traders’ activities selling everyday commodities in the streets and markets in Tamale, Ghana’s northern metropolis. He offers an account of different scales and temporalities of moral economy. Framed as small-small, an emic phrase that implies humbleness and modesty, this morality is based on two sets of norms and values. First, the idea that progress and growth should be gradual, reliable, and slow; and second, the inclusive norm that someone’s individual success must at the same time let others into the market and enable them to grow and sustain themselves. As Jennische observes:

It is as if money or profit within the market is a kind of commons, a collective resource that must be shared. The individual short-term profits and progression of each trader is necessary for the collective small-small moral economy to be upheld, which opens for a wider discussion about morality and redistribution as situated in the relation between the individual and the community.

Yet, while being economically enabling and inclusive, the small-small is simultaneously restrictive. It makes it difficult to accumulate significant capital relatively fast and thus impedes personal economic growth, self-realisation, and fulfilment, especially of more successful traders (who might have benefitted from the inclusive aspects of small-small to get into the market in their early days as traders). Hence, the study analyses the contradictions, tensions, and vulnerabilities of such a redistribution system. It gives insight into how the moral economy of small-small comes under pressure materially and normatively in times of transformation, particularly due to the neoliberalisation of the economy, but also due to demographic shifts – with an influx of foreign economic actors. Studying the entanglements of the market, the nation state, and the politics of informality, Jennische highlights that the moral-economy concept sheds light on (re)distributive processes by bringing to fore the relationships between individual and collective gains embedded in local economic practices on the one hand, and global neoliberal capitalism on the other.

In his paper on Conspicuous redistribution: money, morality, and masculinity in Nigeria, Daniel Jordan Smith introduces the concept of conspicuous redistribution. He shows that within the complex geometry of masculinity, money, status, and morality in Nigeria, particularly elite men aim to pursue yet also spend and redistribute money. In this process, they have to navigate two key moral-economic vectors: the extraordinary importance of the desire for money in Nigerian society in everyday economic, social, and cultural life and the moral objections to money due to the widespread association of it with greed, corruption, and moral decay.

To better understand the moral economy of redistributive practices, Smith shows that conspicuous redistribution has a long history in the country, embedded within kinship and patron-client relationships, in which unequal wealth and power are tempered through obligations to share. In certain instances, (partly conspicuous) redistribution allows the wealthy to ‘clean’ their suspect money, as it widens the range of beneficiaries. It is not, as Smith argues, that solely through spending lavishly at a wedding or a funeral the (allegedly ‘dirty’) origins of the money or the partly bad reputation of the spender are fully rehabilitated. Yet in combination with practices that confirm moral beliefs in Nigerian society, money well spent can go a long way in making or mending a powerful character’s reputation. As Smith points out, the more money a man has the greater his leverage powers are in this respect.

As Smith further emphasises, it is particularly the elites that benefit from conspicuous redistribution, as it allows them to convert monetary wealth into legitimacy and prestige. Ordinary people may believe they, to a certain extent, share in the elites’ wealth, yet this comes at the costs of obscuring persistent inequalities and sustained power of elites. Non-elites are not oblivious to the discrepancies, but they not only continue to participate in spectacles of conspicuous redistribution, they also expect them – even demand them – as Smith shows. The case accordingly gives insight into the reproduction of a hegemony of an overall (political) moral economy of (re)distribution in capitalist Nigeria in favour of elites.

Equally addressing interactions with elites, Alba Valenciano-Mañé, in her paper on Redistributive matronage: a moral economy of female traders and the ruling elite in Equatorial Guinea, provides insights into redistributive patterns in the case of society ruled and dominated by a rent-seeking ‘oil elite’. On the one side, national distribution is determined and captured by the those who have access to oil rents and the resources of the state. On the other side, the female market traders in Valenciano-Mañé’s study rely on redistributive arrangements with female members of the elite, such as the First Lady. As the case highlights, the moral-economy concept is applicable to unpacking and accounting for these arrangements, including their gender dimensions. The female, petty traders, for instance, hold (implicit) moral opinions about distributive outcomes – not in the sense that they explicitly argue that the elite should further fairer (‘pre’-distribution) outcomes, but rather that they consider it highly unfair when elites enter into their domain of small-scale (apparel) trading. The elites are already highly privileged and should leave the market trading to the (female) petty traders, they argue.

Of particular relevance to their concerns is that the female traders engage in redistributive arrangements with the elites through their position as petty traders. As with Thompson’s (1971) analysis, there are presumed obligations of reciprocity from the elite towards the less well-off market traders. This redistributive matronage, as Valenciano-Mañé coins it, is not solely material, though it creates an evident situation of indebtedness. The First Lady, for instance, does not expect the female petty traders to repay the debt in financial terms necessarily, yet expects them to do so in the form of (political) loyalty and support. Possible interference of elites in their domain of petty trading, then, may jeopardise not only their trading, but also the moral economy of redistributive matronage that comes along with it. The case adds to the analysis in this special issue of the reproduction, dynamics, and interwovenness of political and moral-economic power and capital of ruling classes (via their particular relations with members of the subaltern classes) on the continent.

Patience Chadambuka, Felix Tombindo and Tawanda Ray Bvirindi contribute to the special issue with an article titled ‘They are taking everything away from us’: autochthonous claims and the moral contestations over Chiadzwa diamonds, eastern Zimbabwe. Their work explores the moral contestations articulated by displaced diamond miners in a context – post-colonial Zimbabwe – where ownership and redistribution of natural resources such as land and minerals feature prominently, and controversially, in the public debate. In the late 2000s, shortly after having discovered diamond reserves, artisanal miners of Chiadzwa (a diamond rich area located in Manicaland province) were forcibly displaced from their region and relocated to a farm elsewhere. The state intended to favour the development of industrial extraction by mining companies, particularly Russian and Chinese companies.

Evicted miners, who before could freely mine the diamond rich fields, articulate their grievances around the language of legitimacy, moral entitlement, and what the authors define as a ‘spiritual narrative’. In their view, diamond reserves were offered to them by the ancestors, and the takeover of diamond mining by the state and by foreign companies represents a violation of their ancestral entitlement and their rights as autochthones of Chiadzwa – in reality, a quite recent effect of their relocation during colonial times. When compared to the ‘gift’ of diamonds from the ancestors, seen as a form of redistributive justice between the dead and the living and across generations, the timid mechanisms created by the Zimbabwean state to guarantee some trickle-down of profits to local residents and formerly evicted miners appear as insufficient and unacceptable. Having improved their living standards with diamond mining, the evicted miners now feel worse off, despite their (ancestral) claims to the land – and their diamonds. With insights from the theorists of ‘moral economy’ (particularly Thompson and Scott), Chadambuka, Tmbindo and Bvirindi make sense of the artisanal miners’ opposition to state-sponsored projects of capitalist resource extraction, and to their claim of a right to ‘subsistence security’.

Desalegn Amsalu’s paper, titled The economic rationality in the culture of Gamo wealth redistribution, Southern Ethiopia, analyses the moral and political economy of wealth (re)distribution in a pre-capitalist African setting. Amsalu argues that many of the studies on the moral economy of ‘traditional’ African societies have asserted that wealth redistribution in these societies was made only for the moral satisfaction of the redistributors. Yet this notion has been countered in the past decades by scholarship that argues that pre-capitalist societies were also economically rational and shaped by matters of political economy, namely, that wealth redistribution had not only a moral but also a political and economic dimension. Overall, though, the non-moral political and economic aspects and functions of wealth redistribution in traditional African societies remain understudied.

According to Amsalu, economic moralities such as wealth redistribution in the pre-capitalist rural society of the Gamo highlands of Southern Ethiopia can be interpreted as having also been made for economic and political gains. He presents ethnographic insights of economic moralities that oblige redistribution of wealth in exchange for political power in this ethnic group. More specifically, as part of an institution known as haleqa, economically better-off individuals redistribute wealth (in cash and/or in kind, as well as through holding significant feasts for the community) to less-wealthy community members for instrumental reasons: to get elected by them as clan leaders, a position that allowed them to secure economic benefits, notably community contributions of ‘labour, money, or other materials in kind to the leader in power’.

Amsalu thus overall argues that the culture of wealth redistribution of the Gamo highlands is not merely ‘moral’ action (as per the pairing of traditional with moral) but also significantly informed by rational political-economic calculi and behaviours. Hence, economic values and interests are equally important in traditional societies when it comes to power. The culture of wealth redistribution is a product of ‘moral’ and ‘rational’ (political-economic) behaviours. Therefore, both contemporary societies and traditional societies in Africa have, as Amsalu’s analysis highlights, evident entanglements of power, polity, economy, wealth, and morality.

Finally, Karen Lauterbach’s paper, titled A man’s gift will make room for him’: sources of wealth and legitimacy in charismatic Christianity in Ghana, takes the analysis of the moral economy of (re)distribution to the realm of religion. The accumulation and redistribution of wealth in charismatic Christianity in Africa is a contested moral affair. In Ghana, rich charismatic pastors are, for example, accused of stealing poor people’s money and their wealth is seen by many as illegitimate. At the same time, many church members see a pastor’s wealth as a sign of his/her spiritual power and charismatic gifts. Against this background, Lauterbach discuss the ways in which charismatic pastors, church members, and the broader public understand and debate different forms of wealth and distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate wealth.

Based on research in Kumasi, Ghana’s second biggest city and the capital of the Asante kingdom, Lauterbach argues that in processes of wealth legitimisation the nature of the sources of the wealth matters. In debates distinctions are made regarding the moral standings of pastors, that is, between ‘fake’ pastors (who are out for quick money) and genuine pastors (those who have received a calling from God that is recognised and sanctioned by the religious community). ‘It is within these relationships of exchange that wealth redistribution takes place within the charismatic Christian scene and where pastors need to balance the line of appearing wealthy (accumulation for him or herself) or redistributing within the community’. A pastor’s individual wealth and prosperity is seen as legitimate in this context if he/she redistributes in morally acceptable ways, namely, for the well-being of society.

Discussing wealth and (re)distribution in a moral-economy framework, Lauterbach writes, sheds light on the important religious aspects of economic transactions in contemporary Ghana, and Africa generally. It enables an analysis of how the entanglements between the religious and the economic are morally debated and contested in a way that approaches both fields as changeable and transformative. It helps to explore the changes and ambiguities in how religious ideas, principles, and practices serve as a source for understanding economic practice, which offers ‘insight into the moral economy of the religious field as well as the religious nature of the moral economy’. Accordingly, shifts in the moral economy of religious transactions reflect broader changes of moral economy in society and vice versa because the role of religion in Ghana is not restricted to the religious field, but is shaping social, political, and economic life more broadly.

We are all everyday moral economists of sorts

The selection of papers demonstrates that most actors in the analysed settings have a strong moral sense of and views concerning who gets (and gives) what and why. As the ethnographic observations of localised settings – at the level of streets, fields, markets, highways, communities, churches, mosques, and homes – highlight, nearly everyone evaluates, endorses, and/or criticises particular practices of (re)distribution as good or bad, proper or improper, acceptable or unacceptable. Thus, everyone is a sort of moral economist, a skilful everyday observer, analyst, and commentator on political-economic and moral-economic matters. This speaks to the analytical interests of how morals inform the views, discourses, and practices of distribution and redistribution of economic resources, gains, and wealth.

The cases highlight that demands and justifications of (re)distribution often operate vis-à-vis wider groups, such as families, friends, and/or kin. The processes and patterns involved are frequently emotional and they are morally ambiguous, with, among others, forms of (conspicuous) redistribution also allowing actors to deflect further demands for fairer economic outcomes. Besides, particular notions about what actors believe they are due (or not due) are shaped by often persistent, dominant moral grammars, for example notions of a capitalist work ethic and reward. Yet, simultaneously, actors also morally contest distribution outcomes in various ways – for example, by creating a sense of moral entitlement to appropriate goods, resources or gains to which they do not legally or officially hold rights. What both the papers and broader developments discussed earlier in the introduction show, however, is that moral views, debates, and practices at the micro level hardly (and in any case only very slowly) alter distributive outcomes and logics at the macro level. Moral critiques regarding superyachts, CEO rewards, or the wealth, lifestyle and consumption of the rich often go ‘nowhere’; within mainstream political debates structurally changing distributive outcomes seldomly becomes a theme. Most attention is instead ‘diverted’ to redistribution. To understand this, as the papers in this special issue show, paying attention to how the material economy is morally perceived, constituted, and contested along various vectors of distribution and redistribution is key.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tijo Salverda

Tijo Salverda is an economic anthropologist, who has held several (temporary) research positions and professorships, currently a guest professorship at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (2023-2024). Tijo has published widely on elites, inequality, corporations and their critics, and moral economy - in Mauritius, Zambia, South Africa, and various European countries. He furthermore is involved in applied-anthropological projects that focus on a just transition and distribution of the costs and benefits of climate change (see also www.tijosalverda.nl).

Cristiano Lanzano

Cristiano Lanzano is a social anthropologist currently affiliated with the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (Sweden) and with KULeuven (Belgium). He has also taught as a lecturer at Uppsala University (Sweden) and at the University of Torino (Italy). He has conducted research on urban cultures, informal economies, natural resources management, and small-scale mining in different West African countries (Senegal, Burkina Faso, Guinea Conakry and Ghana).

Jörg Wiegratz

Jörg Wiegratz is lecturer in Political Economy of Global Development at the School of Politics and International Studies, University of Leeds. He is Senior Research Associate, Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg, and Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, United States International University-Africa, Nairobi. He specialises in neoliberalism, fraud and anti-fraud measures, commercialisation and economic pressure and related aspects of moral and political economy, with a focus on Uganda and Kenya.

Notes

1 For example, the pope: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2024-01/pope-francis-message-davos-world-economic-forum.html [accessed 31 May 2024].

2 This special issue emerged out of two workshops we held in Uppsala, Sweden and Cologne, Germany in 2018, on The moral dimensions of economic life in Africa. In addition to the papers included in this special issue, a set of papers was published in the journal, Critical African Studies titled Moral economies of capitalism in Africa (Wiegratz, Salverda, and Lanzano 2024). The workshops were financially supported by the Nordic Africa Institute (Uppsala, Sweden), the University of Leeds (School of Politics and International Studies, UK, Strategic Research Investment Fund), the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE), and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation in Cologne, Germany.

3 https://www.gov.za/blog/desk-president-14 [accessed 13 June 2024].

4 https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/2/more-money-more-problems-debate-on-black-tax-in-african-football-returns [accessed 28 May 2024].

5 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-urges-a-moral-economy-during-vatican-visit/ [accessed 7 June 2024].