Ambivalent and Manichean: Moral Disorder Among Romania’s Downwardly Mobile
Ambivalent and Manichean: Moral Disorder Among Romania’s Downwardly Mobile

Summary/Abstract: One common lament heard among working class people in post-state socialist Romania – particularly among those who are downwardly mobile – is that “the only people who get ahead are the thieves [ho
ii].” This is a common trope in Eastern Europe among people “on the margins” who have experienced the period after 1989 as decline. I will argue here that the trope of “thieves” reveals something significant about emerging perspectives on what it means to be a “moral person” in contemporary Romania. Through relating “success” to the illicit nature of actors in the marketizing economy of Romania, people who are experiencing profound decline – what I term the “new poverty” of post-state socialism – are drawing new moral distinctions that give meaning to their hardships.

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