ABSTRACT
Contrary to its conventional portrayal, capitalism has coevolved with a variety of social structures and moral traditions over its past two centuries. Not singular but many, the new Asian capitalisms illustrate this complexity with particular clarity. Whether with guanxi networks for capital accumulation in Taiwan or Communist sponsorship of private enterprise in Vietnam, capitalism works by articulating with local polities, organizations, and cultures (see Redding 1990; Clegg and Redding 1990). Inevitably, as this local embrace deepens, enterprise redirects local resources and relationships toward new ends, adjusting or even obliterating their prior form and meaning. Sometimes, as with the family and guanxi among Chinese, this harnessing of old structures and sentiments to new social ends provides capitalism with exceptional local vigor and, no less significant, ethical legitimacy. In such instances, capitalist enterprise will appear not alien or intrusive but a novel application of existing relationships to new social projects. Other times, the old ways may prove incompatible with the new economy and will be quarantined or marginalized as the market system prevails. A dual economy of morality may develop in which market behavior violates values and sentiments central to other sectors of social life. A society can learn to live with such moral segmentation and the political inequality on which it is typically premised. For such an accommodation to be reached, however, the local tradition now subordinate to the economy must renounce its claim to an overarching 225social vision. Where the junior partner to this unhappy union continues to insist on a more expansive ethical project—such as, say, subordinating the market to religious norms—the capitalist order may be experienced as alien, immoral, and illegitimate.
