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Abstract
This article examines a shift in the discourses through which attention to problems is justified in global governance. Whereas appeals to the public good and private gain were once invoked as distinct and often conflicting grounds for collective action, contemporary governance discourses increasingly bring them into alignment. Grasping this shift, I argue, requires a moral economy lens that can account for the novel entanglements between profit and moral obligation in an era where hybrid arrangements and the language of stakeholder collaboration have become commonplace. Empirically, the article traces how malnutrition moved from episodic recognition to unprecedented prominence within the United Nations (UN) governance architecture after 2008. It argues that two practices were central to this shift: the communalization of market solutions and the recasting of the problem as a win–win opportunity. The paper underscores the need for an analytical reintegration of morality in international political economy (IPE) not only within the confines of financial or corporate practice, but also as part of a wider transformation of how the global ‘common’ is being articulated. More broadly, the analysis shows that moral discourses may function not as a remedy for capitalism but as one of the means through which it anchors its core principles at the heart of public life.