This article challenges E.P. Thompson’s definition of ‘moral economy’ as a traditionalconsensus of crowd rights that were swept away by market forces. Instead, it suggests thatthe concept has the potential of improving the understanding of modern civil society. Moraleconomy was a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe many things.Thompson’s approach reflects only a minor part of this conceptual history. Hisunderstanding of moral economy is conditioned by a dichotomous view of history and bythe acceptance of a model according to which modern economy is not subject to moralconcerns. It is on principle problematic to confine a term conjoining two concepts asgeneral as ‘moral’ and ‘economy’ to a specific historical and social setting. Recentapproaches that frame moral economy as an emotively defined order of morals are alsomisleading since they do not address economic issues in the way they are commonlyunderstood. The most promising current approaches appear to be those that consider themoral economy of welfare, humanitarianism, and civil society. The concept of moraleconomy may help us to clarify alternative ways of ‘utility maximisation’ through theconstruction of altruistic meaning for economic transactions.