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A key, if often under-explored, dimension of the power and resources to which corporations have access is their level of ‘moral capital’ – the ways in and the extent to which private corporate activity is valorised through a range of representations, claims and assumptions. This chapter examines the social construction of corporate morality over the thirty years before the crisis – that is, the emergence and consolidation of the moral capital of private capital under neo-liberalism. The elevated moral capital of private capital in general is not pure ‘ideology’, but a product of material changes in the organisation of economic and social life. Indeed, it is the combination of the ideological strength and thoroughgoing material basis for the elevated moral status of private capital which makes ‘freedom’ for capital difficult to resist: the superiority of the private over the allegedly wasteful, inefficient, intrusive and freedom-negating public sector becomes obvious.

This chapter focuses on nongovernmental organizations' (NGOs') moral capital, empowerment, and strategic behavior. Moral capital can facilitate spatial and territorial strategizing in as much as it can help locate and retain partners at a local level. While the moral vision and mission of NGOs is often linked to promoting social justice, this agenda never guarantees the support of local residents in areas where organizations wish to work. Moral capital can serve as an antidote to the skepticism and distrust that often confronts NGOs in these situations. How the sensitivity, strategic rationality, and moral capital become intertwined is revealed when NGOs pursue multifaceted action. There is a tendency to promote area-based reputations with attendant spatial economies of scale, often facilitating the acquisition of moral capital.

This chapter focuses on the different aspects of the nongovernmental organizations' (NGOs') financial strategies. NGOs need sophisticated strategies if they are to acquire the money needed to sustain themselves. The search for funding is associated with the quest for moral capital. The need to raise funds can lead nonprofit organizations to become more like the for-profit sector. Commercial activities are considered the way to boost income in lieu of increased donations. NGOs enlist support from diverse donors, notably to dilute dependency on state- and business-linked sources by boosting income from civil society. The search for cash and moral capital through the medium of NGO-managed funding arrangements is likely to continue to be the basis for interorganization tension as charges of favoritism color funding deliberations.

This chapter presents different aspects of NGOs as reputation-seeking actors operating in a world of moral capital production and consumption. NGO empowerment can be partly a matter of an instrumental form of strategic rationality understood as consistency over action in line with preferences. The quest for moral capital involved the Haribon Foundation and the Philippine Association For Intercultural Development (PAFID) in diverse, multifaceted political strategies involving notably critical engagement with state agencies and constructive engagement with local communities. The two NGOs ideally fit the moral capital perspective. That perspective may help in understanding a small set of reform-minded national NGOs, even though the assumptions and elements of moral capital may not permit the perspective's application to other sorts of NGOs, let alone other types of actors.

This chapter focuses on the spirituality of the urban residents of Shenzhen, a new city just across the border from Hong Kong. As a prosperous metropolis with little history and no tradition, inhabited almost exclusively by migrants from other parts of China, Shenzhen offers clues on the future of religion in a hypermodern, urban Chinese context. The chapter shows how Shenzhen residents actively turn to China's spiritual heritage to give moral meaning to their lives in a competitive market economy.

The introduction lays the groundwork for the arguments made in the rest of the book. It maps out how, contrary to popular assumptions, some marginalized youth in Iran—termed the face-savers—are not a “generation in wait” prone to oppositional practices, but active agents who conform to social norms in an effort to change their lot in life. Through the repeated, daily practice of saving face, these youth increase public perceptions of their moral worth, which can subsequently lead them to gain incremental mobility within poverty. A historical overview of the interplay between state policies and struggles from below to make the most of life’s circumstances provides additional contextual detail of how the poor’s aspirations for the good life have been shaped by the perceived structures of constraints and opportunities that surround them. The introduction further provides a brief social history of the primary field site, Sari, Mazandaran, and incorporates details of the methodology of the study.

This chapter examines the history and structure of face (aberu) and facework in Iran. Upon analyzing the interlinkages between saving face and cultural norms of modesty, the chapter argues that face-savers uphold a moral code comprised of four rules—hard work, self-sufficiency, appearance, and purity—that mitigate threats to their face. These rules serve as moral evaluative distinctions by which both face-savers and members of their community judge others’ moral worth. This process leads to a system of micro-stratification within low-income communities, whereby those who have accumulated moral capital by mimicking middle-class values hold a higher status than those who have not. By exchanging their moral capital for social and economic benefits, face-savers come to gain social mobility within poverty. Agency thus lies in the process of ritual compliance to the social order. The chapter further discusses how face-savers’ aspirations for middle-class lifestyles not only reflect the embourgeoisement of Iranian society beyond the middle and upper classes, but also the state’s own developmental initiatives.

The final substantive chapter uses the results of a questionnaire to explore what ministers and members said about why they made the choices they did. Analysis of both past experience and a hypothetical scenario in the context of rational choice theory revealed that Rodney Stark and Roger Finke’s concepts of social capital and religious capital provide an insufficient explanation of reaffiliation between Churches. The author introduced a third factor, moral capital (in this case past experience of leadership), and found that this, equally with religious capital (commitment to doctrines), far outweighed social capital (e.g. family and friends) in their effect on reaffiliation. This extension of rational choice theory in a detailed case study is a significant development in the analysis and understanding of religious choice.

This chapter describes how the fruits of Republican victory in 1872 soon turned into ashes. What would follow would be a run of bankruptcies: bankrupted reputations, bankrupted policies, and bankrupted stores of the moral capital on which Reconstruction depended.