Commercial failure lost moral stigma in nineteenth-century America’s growth economy.

Evidence

Bankruptcy originally had a punitive ring. It was at one time a crime, later a disgrace. But in the United States, with its vibrant economy, its commitment to growth, and where so many men risked so much on the toss of commercial dice, failure became in a sense normal, in a sense domesticated. Debt never lost its flavor of disgrace completely—​there were still plenty of skeptics, plenty of what Balleisen has called “commercial moralists”; but in an age of business, its stigma lost much of its bite. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1600

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Early nineteenth-century Americans feared corporations as soulless and immortal concentrations of greed. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 1072; Moral violations get theorized as production failures within a factory metaphor of society — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 490; Capitalism historically challenged ascribed status by rewarding fortune — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 83

Broader Connections

• Moral violations get theorized as production failures within a factory metaphor of society #expands (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 490
• Capitalism historically challenged ascribed status by rewarding fortune #expands (0.72) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 83