In this urban setting, norms and values are not given, inscrutable social facts made unchallengeable by tradition or by formal definition. They are part of a process of ‘active selection’ (Lukes 1991b, 1991a: ch. 18) and redefinition through which the popolino construct their careers. Within the (relatively flexible) boundaries of right and wrong, good and evil, the combination of interest and disinterest and its representation are negotiated in response to much more than practical goal pursuits, or abstract notions of the collective good. Case material on the entrepreneurial morality and ethics of local people who at the time of the original fieldwork were in their twenties, in comparison with their immediate elders and with teenagers will help us to address the nature and scope of change in this complex relationship between social norms, personal identity and the rational pursuit of interests.

Contrasting norms and values with outcome-oriented motivations, I have said, would misleadingly simplify our task. This point is illustrated by the way in which the strong continuous interaction between different resources is affected by young people's construction of their motivations, expectations and culture of fulfilment in terms of their view of their place in society. Negotiated change in these crucial domains of life, I shall argue, brings about a morally and practically significant redefinition not only of culture and social relations but of the agency/structure relationship.

Local young people collectively show an improvement on their immediate elders' ability to carry entrepreneurialism beyond established patterns without necessarily coming into conflict with the recognized social and moral order.