In an article in the Journal of Markets & Morality, Ryan Langrill and Virgil Henry Storr examine “The Moral Meanings of Markets.” They argue that “traditional defenses of the morality of the market tend to inadequately articulate the moral meanings of markets.” Such defenses tend to argue from practical, even pragmatic or utilitarian, grounds.

But for Langrill and Storr, “markets depend on and promote virtue.” Evidence of this virtue in the marketplace, they argue, is that “consumers are often willing to pay a premium and workers are often willing to work at a discount in order to interact with honest, trustworthy, faithful, and even loving (i.e., charitable) brokers and merchants.”

A recent study seems to contradict this finding, however, noting that at least in some circumstances rude behavior by retail clerks increases sales. Today at Think Christian in “The Paradoxical Appeal of Rude Sales Clerks,” I explore these findings and put them within the broader context of what it might mean to “ration by rudeness.”

Read more: Ryan Langrill and Virgil Henry Storr, “The Moral Meanings of Markets,” Journal of Markets & Morality 15, no. 2 (Fall 2012): 347-362