Haunted Fortunes. The moral contestation of large wealth

• In Event: Global Perspectives on Wealth and Elites

Abstract

In recent years, large private fortunes linked to historical violence or severe contemporary social harm have repeatedly become objects of moral contestation. This article develops a sociological framework for understanding such controversies by conceptualizing large fortunes as morally vulnerable claims on society. Drawing on the sociology of valuation, Emile Durkheim’s theory of property, and Mary Douglas’s theory of pollution, I argue that the legitimacy of wealth depends on ongoing moral evaluations shaped by shifting valuation regimes. Using fortunes associated with Nazi crimes in Germany, colonial exploitation, and the opioid crisis in the United States as illustrations, the article shows how changes in moral grammars reclassify wealth as morally tainted. These processes constrain the fungibility and status-generating capacities of large fortunes without abolishing legal ownership. The analysis further examines the patterned responses of wealth holders as performative strategies of moral repair aimed at restoring the diminished capacities of wealth.

Author

• Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies