Abstract

Business and economics in contemporary India are usually narrated through a vocabulary of growth, efficiency, innovation, and competitiveness. In this vocabulary, markets appear as neutral mechanisms and the consumer appears as a rational chooser. Yet the everyday experience of Indian market life suggests that neither markets nor consumers are culturally neutral entities. This paper argues that what is called “the economy” is also a moral and cultural order: it trains citizens to perceive needs as preferences, obligations as transactions, and social relations as cost-benefit choices. Drawing on a conceptual style associated with S. N. Balagangadhara, the paper treats “rational choice” not as a universal description of human action but as a culturally specific grammar that has become naturalised through education, advertising, financial technologies, and state policy. The argument is developed through three sites of contemporary Indian economic life: the rise of digital payments and credit scoring; the social expansion of consumer aspiration through platform advertising and influencer economies; and the conversion of small business activity into compliance-driven “formalisation.” The paper shows how these processes generate new hierarchies of dignity: the “financially disciplined” appear as morally superior, while the “cash-based” appear as backward or suspicious. In this transformation, business becomes not merely economic activity but a social pedagogy, shaping how Indians learn to desire, to judge, and to trust. The paper concludes that India’s economic debates cannot be resolved solely by technical adjustments in policy; they require attention to the cultural assumptions embedded in the very categories of market reasoning.

Keywords

Economics, Rational Choice, Business, Moral

Citation (APA Format)

Jyoti, & Gaur, B. S. (2025). The moral grammar of markets: Business, economics, and the making of the “rational” Indian consumer. International Journal of Politics, Law and Management, 4(2), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17990010