The moral economy of pastoralists seen through the Levy-Cordelli lens of investment

Below I commit an injustice to the insights of three publications: (1) Tahari Shariff Mohamed (2022). The Role of the Moral Economy in Response to Uncertainty among Borana Pastoralists of Northern Kenya, Isiolo County, PhD dissertation, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex: Falmer, Brighton UK; (2) Jonathan Levy (2025). The Real Economy: History and Theory, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ; and (3) Chiara Cordelli (2025). “What Is the Wrong of Capitalism?” American Political Science Review 1–16.

Yet the Levy/Cordelli perspective on the central role of investments–not accumulation, not markets, not prices, but investment–in real economies is an excellent lens with which to add to and extend the already more nuanced work now underway on moral economies.

Let me start with Mohamed’s work. She makes many fine points about really-existing moral economies, but we have space for probing only one–her connection between diversification of pastoralist livelihoods and investments (I bold terms to be parsed through the Levy/Corelli lens):

Pastoralists rely on fundamental practices such as herd mobility, livestock species and livelihood diversification, and investing in social relations in order to navigate livestock production uncertainties. Within these practices, particular moral economy practices, centred on collective redistribution of resources remain significant. The thesis identifies five types of moral economy practice. In the more remote pastoral setting, with intensified insecurity and limited state and institutional presence, practices of redistribution and comradeship are central. In the more urban pastoral setting, with a proliferation of institutions, markets, diversification and investment, institutionalised support and collective crisis management through the use of newly important technologies are seen. Contrary to the assumption that the moral economy is waning due to social stratification and individualisation, the thesis finds that moral economies persist, and new forms are emerging. (p.xvi)

Here, the moral economy emerges through galvanising household members to engage in various income-generating activities to cover costs such as purchasing feeds and paying hired labourers. It is the shared responsibilities and duties to collectively contributes remittances and other income from diverse economies to save the livelihood that embodies moral economy. It embodies what Ellis referred to as ‘non-economic’ aspect of social relations that regulate resource use and access to ensure survival (Ellis, 2000a). It differs from the traditional moral economy of mobilising household members to provide labour support; instead, household members engage in diverse livelihood activities to generate much-needed income that is then invested in sustaining the herd. (p.138)

. . .there is a ‘non-economic’ component of diversification, including social relations, norms and values that regulate income distribution and access. For instance, the case studies presented in chapter seven on women and intra-household diversification illuminated the power dynamic and the transforming gender relations that defined how pastoralists survived in a more urbanising setting. Equally, the opening quote of this section alludes to ‘we’, meaning that it is not one person who diversifies; instead, it is a combined effort by individuals within the family that pull resources and share remittance to manage the livelihood. Thirdly, diversification espouses the moral economy practices defined in this study as a network of relations based on trust that enhances access to resources for survival in the face of uncertainties. I argue that pastoralists establish external connections through economic ties and symbiotic relationships in order to generate a reliable flow of goods, including feeds, labour and market access to survive unpredictable pastoral production. (p.154)

Yet, if I understand Levy and Corelli correctly, what is “non-economic” in the above is economic by virtue of the centrality of investment (e.g., “investing in social relations”). “What is the first act that creates the economy?,” asks Levy in an interview. “It is neither production nor exchange (market or otherwise). It is the storing of wealth over time, with which I associate with investment.” Livestock as a store of wealth with which to save and from which to invest has been one paradigmatic example.

For Levy, the centrality of investment applies to what he calls the real economy–which, importantly, need not be a capitalist one (e.g., p.21). This is important because capitalist economies have a feature that moral economies must mitigate. In Cordelli’s argument,

. . .under capitalism both the amount and the direction of production are driven by a distinctively future-oriented investment process. Such process is guided by a specific mode of economic valuation—capitalization—which consists in attributing monetary value to assets in the present on the basis of their expected future profitability, rather than their inherent productivity, or the labor expenditure that went into producing them. Since, under capitalism, what will be produced crucially depends on investment, investment is left to private markets, and economic valuation is oriented to future profits, capitalism structurally entails a radical loss of collective control over, and involvement in, the creation and valuation of the future. Capitalism privatizes the power to build the future, and to decide according to which values it should be built. It leaves such power to profit-oriented investment markets. (p.3)

Little of this description will trouble those insisting that capitalism has commodified and marketized every major aspect of contemporary pastoralism. The passage however should trouble those who see the investment in social relations as a way to mitigate or forestall such thorough-going commodification and marketization.

Yes, the latter are increasing, though one must keep in mind Mohamed’s caution about assuming everywhere the “waning moral economy”. Whatever, the bigger question remains, Why hasn’t the waning gone even faster?

Cordelli provides one answer, namely, livestock are not capital unless they can be capitalized: “[S]avings cannot per se count as capital, because they are not capitalized, and the inherent productivity of the means of production is insufficient to make them capital” (p. 6-7). That is, livestock as that walking savings bank isn’t capital just because that store of wealth is based in livestock production; it’s because investment in social relations has kept their flows of benefit from being altogether discounted into economic net present value for pastoralists.

So what? What’s the upshot for pastoralist policy and management? Best to let Levy have the last word in terms of understanding real economies:

Categorically speaking there is nothing wrong with the methodological use of abstractions, mathematical exposition, modeling, building up explanations from individual choice and behavior, extreme scaffolding assumptions, or statistical inference. It may be true that economics at times suffers from being incorrect. The critique I am most invested in making, however, is that even when correct economics also suffers from being intolerably incomplete. (p.16)

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NB. For more on the central importance of incompletion to policy and management, please see:

https://mess-and-reliability.blog/2025/03/15/its-time-to-reboot-policy-analysis/

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Sources

Donald Judt (2025). “Storage, Investment, and Desire: An Interview with Jonathan Levy” Journal of the History of Ideas Blog (accessed at https://www.jhiblog.org/2025/02/24/storage-investment-and-desire-an-interview-with-jonathan-levy/)

Mohamed’s thesis can be found at: https://sussex.figshare.com/articles/thesis/The_role_of_the_moral_economy_in_response_to_uncertainty_among_Borana_pastoralists_of_Northern_Kenya_Isiolo_County/23494508?file=41202650

Cordelli’s article can be found at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/what-is-the-wrong-of-capitalism/CD320C659A33C006C6562D363FD5D954