The rational choice model has long been the gold standard of economic theory. While this theory performs well in the simple situations typically presented in textbooks, the quality of performance of the rational choice model weakens as the situations calling for decision become more complex. At this point it is necessary to distinguish the abstract form a theory takes from the substantive context inside of which acCon occurs. Form is a universal quality, but form must be brought to bear in a variety of distinct substantive situations. Our concern in this paper lies in integrating substantive concerns regarding ambiguity and undecidability that oMen affect choice situations into the formal framework of rational choice theory, and to do so with an illustrative variety of choice situations where rational choice is formally valid but where that formality is incomplete all the same.

In this paper, Dan Sutter and Dave Hebert present an entangled political economy approach to understanding institutions and institutional change. In doing so, they push back on the idea that institutional change is always for the better. They pay particular attention to higher education and the perils facing it today.

This study examines the impact of violent and nonviolent revolutions on key indicators of human development, including GDP per capita, education levels, and life expectancy. Using data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project and the Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) dataset, we employ a Callaway Santa’Anna approach with country-and time specific trends to analyze the effects of revolutions across countries from 1900 to 2019. Our most robust models reveal that violent revolutions have no significant effect on GDP per capita but negatively impact education (-0.338 years) and life expectancy (-1.682 years). Nonviolent revolutions demonstrate a small negative effect on GDP per capita (-$725) but no statistically significant impact on education or life expectancy. These findings challenge the notion that revolutionary institutional change consistently improves economic and social outcomes, particularly in the case of violent upheavals. The study contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between political instability and human development, suggesting that the costs of revolutions, especially violent ones, may outweigh their potential benefits in terms of socioeconomic progress.

This month, we'll be hearing from Meg Tuszynski and Dick Wagner as they discuss their forthcoming book, Reason, Ideology, and Democracy: A Study in Entangled Political Economy, which will be released November 10th and is available for pre-order on Amazon here or direct from the publisher here.

Democratic political systems are often thought to be preferable to all others for supporting liberty. Around the world, nations that are more democratic tend to be freer across various aspects of life and human experience. This book undertakes a social scientific analysis of this claim and finds it to be wanting.

The reality of democratic systems does not adhere to popular rhetoric. One of the key reasons for this is that our system is an entangled system, one in which the realm of the political and commercial are so intertwined that they cannot be easily separated. Businessmen have political interests, and politicians have commercial interests. The implication of this entanglement is that alleviating the problems that emerge in democratic systems is not a simple matter of rolling back damaging interventions. Due to the logic of entanglement, returning to a "free market" is not possible in most cases.

The authors pull economics back to its classical roots to analyze the social orders that best allow people to live together. The world is not constantly aiming at placidity, as the prevailing economics of equilibrium would have us think. We live in a world of change and turbulence, so our social science requires a framework that deals with this turbulence robustly. Classical economists beginning with Adam Smith sought to uncover which forms of human association allowed us to live better together. The authors explain Smith's observations, asking the same sorts of questions of readers today. Because the baseline assumption of entanglement does not allow one to divide the world so clearly into two distinct structures, the authors parallel Smith's approach, focusing on forms of association rather than political or commercial structures. Focusing on human association, the authors help readers uncover the manifold structures humans have devised that allow them to tame the turbulence and live lives more harmoniously with others.

EPERN is excited to host Maria Pia Paganelli, who will be shedding light on her new paper, "Adam Smith and Sympathetic Cosmopolitanism."

Is cosmopolitanism something to explain or is it the lack of cosmopolitanism something to explain? Is cosmopolitanism an end result or a starting point? The answer depends on the anthropological assumptions one makes. If human beings are assumed to be isolated individuals, then cosmopolitanism is something to explain, a possible end result. But if human beings are assumed to be intrinsically social, then cosmopolitanism is a starting point and what needs to be explained is its absence. I suggest that for Adam Smith humans are intrinsically social and thus his starting point is cosmopolitanism. Given human natural sociability, part of Smith’s task is to explain the absence of cosmopolitanism, which he attributes to either dire living conditions or the ability of some special interest groups to affect public opinion to their benefits.

Maria Pia Paganelli is a professor of economics at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She is renowned for her specialization in the history of economic thought, particularly of the 18th century, with a deep focus on figures such as Adam Smith and David Hume. In her research, Paganelli examines the dynamics of self-interest in relation to institutional environments, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and neuroeconomics. She has contributed extensively to journals like History of Political Economy, The Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and History of Economic Ideas. Additionally, she authored the "Routledge Guidebook of Smith's Wealth of Nations" in 2020. Paganelli currently leads the International Adam Smith Society and serves as the president of the History of Economics Society.

Join us at EPERN as Maria Chaplia presents insights from her recent paper, "Psychedelic Renaissance: An Entangled Political Economy Analysis."

The mental health crisis in the U.S. calls for a reconsideration of existing treatment and the institutional dynamics of public health. The psychedelic renaissance represents a revival of psychedelic therapeutics that have demonstrated promising results in treating mental health conditions. Despite the psychedelic ban in the U.S. in the 1960s-1980s, psychedelics have been successfully navigating out of the prohibition. This paper uses the innovative entangled political economy approach to present the psychedelic renaissance as a polycentric, network-based public health phenomenon that managed to emerge from the intensely entangled system of the pharmaceutical industry, science, and the U.S. government.

The February EPERN session will spotlight John Meadowcroft and his new paper, "Altruism, self-interest, and constitutional reform: the case of the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade."

In June 1833 the British Parliament voted to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. When the act came into effect on 1 August 1838, 800,000 enslaved black men, women and children, most working on sugar plantations in the West Indies, were freed. The emancipation of British slaves followed abolition of the slave trade throughout British territories in 1807. The British abolitions are widely cited as examples of the triumph of altruistic benevolence over pecuniary self-interest leading to welfare-enhancing reforms. Prima facie this challenges the basic tenets of public choice that individuals engage in collective action only to pursue their own self-interest. This paper aims to explain the British abolitions through the lens of public choice theory and entangled political economy by showing the importance of self- interested motives in these reforms, in terms of the cost-benefit calculus of the abolitionists, and the importance of changes to the constitutional rules that preceded reform.

John Meadowcroft, an Associate Professor in Public Policy at King’s College London, centers his research on the interplay between institutions, normative ideas, politics, and policy. Adopting the lens of public choice theory and constitutional political economy, he examines how individuals navigate collective institutions, from political parties to protest movements. He delves into how different institutions influence prevailing ideas and, conversely, how these ideas shape institutions. Since joining King’s in 2006, John has held several leadership roles within the Department of Political Economy and actively contributes to several editorial boards.

EPERN is excited to host Randall Holcombe for a discussion of his new book, “Following Their Leaders.”

Models of democratic decision-making tend to assume that voters have preferences and that candidates adjust their platforms to conform with those preferences; however, the direction of causation is largely the opposite. Political elites offer policy platforms to voters, and voters adopt those policies - they follow their leaders. Following Their Leaders argues that policies are designed by the elite and the electorate has little say. Preferences for public policy tend to be anchored in a political identity associated with a candidate, party, or ideology; voters' preferences on most issues are derived from their anchor preferences. Holcombe argues that because citizens adopt the policies offered by the elite, democratic institutions are ineffective constraints on the exercise of political power. This volume explores political institutions that help control the elite who exercise political power and discusses the implications political preferences have on democracies.

Randall G. Holcombe, DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics at Florida State University, previously taught at Texas A&M and Auburn University. A Senior Fellow at the James Madison Institute, he served on Governor Jeb Bush’s Economic Advisors Council. Author of fifteen books, including "Political Capitalism", his research focuses on public finance and policy analysis.

Join us at EPERN as Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis present insights from their recent book, “The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America.”

A groundbreaking argument that the political spectrum today is inadequate to twenty-first century America and a major source of the confusion and hostility that characterize contemporary political discourse. As American politics descends into a battle of anger and hostility between two groups called "left" and "right," people increasingly ask: What is the essential difference between these two ideological groups? In The Myth of Left and Right, Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis provide the surprising answer: nothing. As the authors argue, there is no enduring philosophy, disposition, or essence uniting the various positions associated with the liberal and conservative ideologies of today. Far from being an eternal dividing line of American politics, the political spectrum came to the United States in the 1920s and, since then, left and right have evolved in so many unpredictable and even contradictory ways that there is currently nothing other than tribal loyalty holding together the many disparate positions that fly under the banners of "liberal" and "conservative." Powerfully argued and cutting against the grain of most scholarship on polarization in America, this book shows why the idea that the political spectrum measures deeply held worldviews is the central political myth of our time and a major cause of the confusion and vitriol that characterize public discourse.

Verlan Lewis is the Stirling Professor at Utah Valley University and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. Specializing in the interplay of political ideas and institutions, his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Hill, Political Science Quarterly, Party Politics, Studies in American Political Development, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Cambridge University Press. Aside from The Myth of Left and Right, he is the author of Ideas in Power.

Hyrum Lewis serves as a History Professor at BYU-Idaho. Originating from Eugene, Oregon, he pursued accounting at Brigham Young University before transitioning to history and philosophy, earning his PhD from the University of Southern California. Having held roles at Skidmore College and Stanford, Lewis specializes in American conservatism, historical pedagogy, and cultural conflict. He has authored articles and books on American politics and contemporary religion. Living in Rexburg, Idaho, he cherishes time cycling, viewing films, and exploring national parks.

EPERN is excited to invite Santiago Jose Gangotena to present his research on “Networks, Bifurcations, and Agents in Entangled Political Economy.”

One insight that flows out of entangled political economy is the possibility of network effects with respect to the different modes of interaction available to individuals for securing cooperation to carry out their plans. When either political or economic modes of interaction can be used network effects may arise. This paper explores how these effects can be modeled using mathematical and computational models to explore how the difference in the choice of modeling framework affects these model’s outcomes and predictions..

Santiago Jose Gangotena is a Professor of Economics and Dean of Liberal Arts at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (the first private liberal arts university in Ecuador!). He holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University. His research focuses on what new knowledge can be gained from modeling the society using Agent Based Models.

Paolo Silvestri will be featured at the first EPERN seminar of the 2023-2024 seminar series. We will delve into his latest paper, “Luigi Einaudi’s ‘Scienza delle Finanze’ or the Science of Good Government.” Silvestri's paper was recently published in the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought: https://doi.org/10.1080/09672567.2023.2249295

This paper rediscovers the meaning and relevance of Luigi Einaudi’s Scienza delle Finanze, which still aspired to a reflection on man and good polity. It reconstructs some key moments in Einaudi’s thought: the vision of the fiscal process, the legal-political speculation, the last reflections aimed at going beyond both the Italian Tradition in Public Finance and Wicksell’s scheme, up to the synthesis elaborated in the critical point theory. Einaudi shows why the fiscal process is at the heart of horizontal/vertical reciprocities and vicious/virtuous circles between society and state, and why a good polity needs free and morally responsible people.

Paolo Silvestri is an Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Law at the University of Catania, Italy. Specializing in the Philosophy of Economics and Law, he identifies as a 'Humanomist', seeking insights into our shared humanity. His ongoing research project, "Homo Contribuens", examines the intricate relationships between concepts like solidarity, freedom, and equality. Paolo delves deep into institutionalized vs. spontaneous solidarity, exploring areas like the fiscal contract's role in the social fabric, contrasting notions like welfare state vs. third sector, and taxation vs. gift.

A great number of theories have been offered as to the root of the difference between the modern mind and the premodern mind. One neglected account comes from Georg Simmel’s Philosophy of Money, which argues that the rise of the mass money economy in the early modern era encouraged calculative modes of thought, and took over the coordinating functions of a number of previously important institutions such as kin and religious networks, thus “freeing” the latter to evolve without strong material feedback. This paper considers monetary exchange and kin/religious networks as alternative strategies for coordinating the division of labor, and shows how the widespread availability of the former can alter the cultural-evolutionary constraints on the latter. This dynamic explains a number of salient differences between modern and premodern moral life such as money’s profaning character, as well as the sociological significance of modern moral phenomena like individualism, rationalism, and fundamentalism.

There has been growing interest in the potential for hydrogen development as an innovative pathway to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. This interest is reflected by the involvement of a multiplicity of actors from commercial, policy, and research communities within the nascent hydrogen innovation space. I introduce a concept of “entangled innovation” which describes how an array of participants in the innovation process forge significant, if not enduring, connections with one another when promulgating technological change. Within this, it is supposed that online communication represents one of many dimensions of network connectivity between innovation parties and stakeholders, but nonetheless one which has been assuming importance in contemporary societies. The entangled innovation conceptual framework sets the scene for the prosecution of an empirical strategy of identifying the network character of hydrogen discussions on the Twitter social media platform. Network analysis of hydrogen-related discussions surrounding 200 key Australian advocacy, commercial, political, and scientific actors reveals a clustered topology of Twitter interactions on hydrogen topics, and with a high degree of entanglement between different categories of conversing actors. Semantic network analysis identified frames relating to issues such as economic development, environmental sustainability of hydrogen decarbonization, and perceived risks associated with this innovation. Sentiment analysis of discussions in the network are also examined, revealing emotional polarities in respect to discussions conveyed about hydrogen innovation potentials. This paper illustrates the significance of online technology in structuring communication networks on innovation, in turn deepening our understanding of entangled political economies featuring multilayered interactions.

In this paper we delineate two distinct conceptions of individuals within the Austrian tradition: (1) autonomous subjective individuals and (2) rule-following agents who draw on their institutional environment. Both can be traced back to Menger's work, but over time the approaches have grown apart. The first approach was developed by Mises, Shackle (and Buchanan) and Rizzo, the second tradition by Hayek, Lachmann and Koppl and Wagner. We connect the second approach to Clark and Chalmers work on the extended mind and active externalism in psychology, while we argue that the first tradition is rooted in a now outdated subjective cognitivism. The active externalism also known as ‘4E cognition’: embodied, embedded, enacted, extended cognition, is congruent with Hayek’s work in (cognitive) psychology ‘The Sensory Order’ and the perspective he developed on the epistemic character of markets and other social structures. We argue for the superiority of this conception of the individual that follows from the second approach, and address the concern that this might come at the expense of methodological individualism as it is traditionally understood.

Note: Joint work with Blaž Remic

Most of the deficit-spending literature attributes the rise in deficit-spending to an increase in rent creation—politicians responding to interest group requests for transfers. However, as McChesney states, rent creation is not the only option available to politicians. In fact, under some circumstances politicians may not even have an incentive to create rents; rather, they may have an incentive to extract rents. As such, this paper elucidates a theory of how deficit-spending offers politicians incentives for rent extraction. Namely, this paper argues that politicians are incentivized to increase money supply in combination with deficit-spending. This is because increasing money supply distorts relative prices in a way that ultimately masks the costs of the transfers made through deficit-spending. In other words, it provides a channel for concentrated benefits and diffuse costs: money supply distorts relative price changes, providing rents to some select few while making it hard and costly for others to know that the select few are benefiting. As a result of this process, politicians can profit by extract rents—they can threaten the select few to repeal their rents unless they pay politicians a return higher. A historical example is provided to provide credence for the theory.

This essay treats entangled political economy within the history of political economy. It explains that entangled political economy is not so much a new development in economics as it is a revisitation of some old themes that were swept aside in the conversion of political economy into economics starting late in the 19th century. With this conversion, what had been a science of social organization transformed into a science of resource allocation and rational calculation. Economics morphed from a science of society into a science of rational administration. With the importation of the calculus of maxima and minima, rational resource allocation came to occupy the analytical foreground and political economy was converted into economics; moreover, political economy came to denote public policy and the political oversight of corporate enterprise, abolishing in the process all semblance of the classical vision of political economy. In contrast, entangled political economy reflects an awareness of what was lost through this transformation into neoclassicism along with a desire to recover some of that lost heritage, although using some new analytical methods, techniques, and insights along the way.

Why did the United States move from having nearly open borders from the 1840s to the 1870s to passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the first law in American history to ban people from entering the United States solely based on race? We argue that the standard story of nativist backlash based on wage pressure explains the demand for immigration restrictions, but not their timing or their racial focus. The demand for immigration restrictions was largely inchoate until the political restructuring that followed the Civil War. Finding themselves uncompetitive in much of the country, the Democrats seized on immigration restrictions, most notably in growing California, as a wedge issue. Chinese residents were unable to vote, thus making restrictions on Chinese entry an especially effective strategy in political economy.

The differences on value between Smith and Menger may be other from previously alleged if status is included as a need satisfied only by truly scarce goods. Given our innate desire to distinguish ourselves and be admired, Smith tells us that scarcity is what generates value. So, our desire for distinction is what drives our demand for “diamonds” and gives them value. But when “diamonds” become as abundant as “knitted stockings”, new forms of scarce status goods must be found. For Menger, value is also a dynamic, evolving “institution” that cannot be understood in a static analysis dealing only with supply and demand at a given moment. But abundance, for Menger, would simply allow us to fulfill higher-level needs. Thus, Smith, but not necessarily Menger, could explain why, as diamond rings, Prada shoes, and Gucci bags can be easily mass produced in identical but “fake” copies, irreproducible goods, such as charity donations and claims on digital art, are taking their place to indicate status in society.

Note: joint work with Jimena Hurtado

This paper is written for a Liberty Fund conference on “Liberty in relation to law and macroeconomics.” The paper works with recognition that the models we use are not neutral devices to see more clearly into reality because they also shade that reality in different ways. For instance, a model grounded on systemic equilibrium and aggregation will almost necessarily assign turbulence to market interaction and thereby place the calming of turbulence in the province of political action simply because there is no coherent alternative. By contrast, a model where turbulence is baked into the cake of human action will recognize that human action both creates and calms turbulence, and continually, and will also recognize that the continual shifting among coalitions that is a feature of democratic politics will more strongly generate turbulence than calm it.

The paper uses the history of the entanglement of the Mi'kmaq peoples and newly arrived French settlers during the 17th and 18th centuries, in what is known today as Canada's Maritime provinces, as a case study of key themes from the theory of entangled political economy. A new political economy, identified as Acadia, emerged from the economic and social interaction of the two peoples, and formed the basis for a sustained political economy that lasted close to a century. Radical disruption from external forces -- esp. the French and English competition to control the eastern portions of North America -- led to catastrophe for the continued existence of Acadia. Historical attention has most often been focused on the political competition between Great Britain and France and the inevitability of Acadia's failure in the clash of great powers. Here, attention will be focused on the Ostromian and Wagnerian themes that might help us understand how Acadian society was created as a radically entangled society in a space created by the absence/presence of great powers.

Democratic backsliding or ‘de-democratisation’ describes the prospect of a democracy sliding into authoritarianism. Can it happen in consolidated democracies? Building on my work on clientelism and semi-authoritarianism, I put forward a novel thesis in a forthcoming book about how changes in the structure of the economy can propel a transition from a consolidated liberal democracy to a hybrid form of authoritarianism under nominal democratic institutions. De-democratisation is understood as the reverse socioeconomic process to the one that facilitated the rise and consolidation of liberal democracies a century and a half ago. In the process of capitalist development, an economic landscape emerged that made it possible for societies to claim and settle on democratic institutions and rights. This landscape has enabled a relatively autonomous civil society to activate the democratic rules and civic liberties its citizens acquired in order to check and constrain exercises of power. Democracy is at risk to the extent that political forces in government will alter this socioeconomic structure by reducing the autonomy of civil society from government. Extensive discretionary applications of state power in the economy favour acquiescence and loyalty and undermine political opposition by making it costlier for social agents to effectively contest exercises of political power.

The central research question to be addressed in this paper is: what is the relationship between entangled political economy and public choice? Originating in the scholarly contributions of Richard E. Wagner, entangled political economy appears to maintain clear affinities with public choice theory, especially with regard to research topics and personnel. Despite those commonalities, our central proposition is that entangled political economy is sufficiently distinct from methodological and analytical dispositions predominating mainstream public choice theory. Contrasting mainstream public choice emphases upon utility-maximizing decisions by individuals, and equilibrating tendencies within political systems, entangled political economy embraces a broader range of motivations and outcomes corresponding with the presumption of open-endedness concerning political activity. This broader purview does not merely reflect the inclination of entangled political economy scholarship to utilize the analytical affordances of complexity and evolutionary economics, and the study of networks. Entangled political economy research provides opportunities to more meaningfully engage deeper questions surrounding rule-governed processes of political interaction. Within this, entangled political economy facilitates comparative institutional analysis of the collective learning capacities of varying political arrangements. In short, entangled political economy provides a viable pathway toward developing an epistemic political economy framework conducive to the realization of political orders consistent with underlying value commitments of liberty, justice, and equality.

Despite both houses of the United States Congress having budgetary rules to limit deficits and debts, the deficit and, as a result, public debt, have increased dramatically despite each rule’s passing. Indeed, since 2001 the debt ceiling has been raised almost every year—with a whopping $480 Billion added at the end of 2021. What has caused the contradiction between the de facto and de jure rules? This paper argues that these budgetary rules are mere slogans to mask political actors’ use of public debt for rent creation and rent extraction. Specifically, this paper presents a political economic theory that illustrates how politicians use public debt as a noncompensated transfer that creates rents, leading to an increase in rent-seeking. Politicians rely on rent-seeking as a discovery process of to whom to award rents—who values rents the most and from whom politicians can benefit. The budgetary rules merely serve as a barrier to entry for rent competition, so that politicians can maximize their shares of the rents they created.

The market failure literature typically has discussions of: "why does bad policy exist and persist?" Various schools of thought have answered that question, but I argue that the explanations, while correct, are incomplete. In this paper, I apply the expert failure literature to the problem of economic policy discussions to show that 1) failed advice can lead other experts to give poor advice and 2) that a consequence of expert failure is that failed policy can persist even if the expert acknowledges the advice has failed. I demonstrate these conclusions with a case study on COVID-19 testing in the United States

Entangled political economy represents a novel approach to studying economic and political interactions amongst individuals, enterprises, and other collectives. One of the distinguishing features of entangled political economy is its usage of sociological ideas – including the political elite theorization and conflict sociology of Vilfredo Pareto and his Italian peers, and socialization themes raised by Norbert Elias. The purpose of this paper is to extend the sociological imprint of entangled political economy, by exploring Wagner’s occasional references to entanglement as a “cosmic drama” of structured living-togetherness. Conceiving human interaction as being dramatic speaks to theatrical metaphors of human interactivity. The drama enacted on the stages of economic and political life are aimed at soliciting public attention and persuading others to form network connections. Dramaturgic entanglement is seen as especially pivotal in motivating triadic political relationships, facilitating public sector growth during, and after, crises. This paper emphasizes the significance of dramatic interactions in entangled economic-political affairs. 

This paper presents an empirical account of the diversity of regulatory developments over the past fifty years, and provides a theoretical framework for understanding this diversity. We build upon the "varieties of capitalism" and the "regulatory capitalism" literatures which provide methods for exploring institutional diversity, and hypotheses about the causes of regulatory diversity. We build a theory of political entrepreneurship under fiscal constraints that expands Stigler's (1971) account of the demand and supply of regulations by including deficit finance and public opinion in the analysis. This framework (a) allows the creation of country-specific analytic narratives, and (b) provides a fuller account of government crowding-out and crowding-in effects, showing how the crowding-out in can occur across the entire structure of production.

This article provides an empirical and theoretical analysis of how controversial firms deal with repugnance: the negative moral meaning attached to (some) their core activities. Existing studies have focused on the (un)desirability of repugnant markets or goods or the design of alternative institutions, but have not analyzed how firms manage existing repugnance. We identify three essential elements of the management of repugnance: 1) managing the size of the firm because other firms might not be willing to engage in contracts with the repugnant firm, 2) managing the scope of the product to ensure that the level of repugnance will not become too high and threaten the firm’s future and 3) managing the symbolic meaning of the good in order to decrease existing feelings of repugnance. We arrive at these three elements through a review of the existing scattered empirical studies of aspects of repugnance as well as two short case-studies. The first case-study details how MindGeek the mother company of Pornhub deals with the repugnance it faces and in particular how it had to integrate vertically in response to obstacles regarding funding, payment infrastructures and advertising. The second case-study analyzes how Sears Roebuck, the mail-order company, dealt with the moral opposition it faced from local shopkeepers in its first decades. This case demonstrates how repugnance, including racist sentiments, were mobilized in response to a new socially and economically disruptive company.