Contributions to Economic Sociology

|Peter Boettke|

In addition to my graduate courses in Austrian economics, comparative political economy, and public choice, I also used to regularly teach a PhD course in economics & sociology that was open to both students in the economics and sociology graduate programs at NYU.  The course focused on Weber (and MIses and Schutz and interpretive sociology; and Peter Berger's work along these lines), and then James Coleman (and both the rational choice framework, and invisible hand explanations), and then moved to Mark Granovetter (and the idea of the embeddedness of markets) and Richard Swedberg (for a sweep of the field and what it has to offer).  

Since moving to GMU in 1998, I have not taught a course in economic sociology, but I have tried to stay in touch with the literature in the field. (see, e.g., my recent overview of Peter Berger's work)  I count Richard Swedberg as both an influence and as a friend, and I consider his Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology (Princeton, 1998) to be one of the best books to read on the theoretical framework that economic sociology can provide for those working on questions of economic development; and I also think his more recent Tocqueville's Political Economy (Princeton, 2009) is very important to read as a wonderful work in intellectual history and social theory.

Both Dick Wagner and I have, at times, used various readings from within the economic sociology literature in our classes, and of course Dick's brilliant books, Fiscal Sociology and The Theory of Public Finance (Elgar, 2007) and Mind, Society and Human Action (Routledge, 2010) should be required reading on any syllabus dealing with economics, political economy, and social theory.  It is my hope that my colleague Virgil Storr, who has stayed actively researching in the field after our initial study, and whose paper "The Market as a Social Space" is another example of mandatory reading in the field, will be offering a graduate seminar to our students here at GMU in the near future.

I have been reading again this summer in the field to catch up, and to see where economic sociologists are taking the field in the wake of the financial crisis.  I have read theoretical works and ethnographic studies on modern finance and the day-to-day practices on Wall Street.  Authors such as Donald MacKenzie and Karen Ho are occupying space on my bookshelves which they didn't do before and they would be on my reading list now along with the names listed above.  One book that I am particularly interested in learning more about and studying in-depth is Alex Preda's Information, Knowledge and Economics Life (Oxford, 2009).  Preda cites Hayek fairly extensively, and claims to have written the first book in the field to discuss the different approaches to understanding the market economy with respect to the link between information and transactions.

Comments

[Daniel Kuehn]

Are you familiar at all with Deirdre Royster's work? She's at NYU now. She was a sociology professor of mine at William and Mary (I double majored in soc and econ), and she first introduced me to many of these guys - Berger, Weber, Swedberg, Granovetter, etc.

She did a lot of work along the lines of Swedberg - looking at how social networks impacted black male employment.

We didn't have an economic sociology course at William and Mary, but Prof. Royster wanted to start one. She knew I was interested, so one semester I did an independent study with her reviewing all the literature and helping her organize her thoughts for a curriculum. That was my senior year - I don't know if she ever pulled a course together or if she's teaching it now at NYU.

Anyway - four others we read were Carruthers, Tilly, Evans, and Skocpol. I especially liked Tilly ("Durable Inequality") and Evans ("Embedded Autonomy").

[Daniel Kuehn]

*Sorry - she did a lot of work along the lines of Granovetter - although as you say, Swedberg seems to do a little of everything.

[Rafe Champion]

Pete has a paper on the Weber and the Austrians connection, putting a lot of blame on Talcott Parsons for unhooking economics and sociology. It is possible that Parsons was OK up to his first book in 1937, then he went off into general sytems theory. This is a reply which calls for a more nuanced reading of Parsons and also Durkheim.

http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2010/08/05/did-talcott-parsons-muddy-the-waters/

It is a part of an argument that Pasons, von Mises and Popper were all converging to the same position during the 1930s. The methodological principles that they formulated were almost identical and they had the potential to hold the social sciences together in a progressive program, against the trends to mathematical formalism, the positivist/behaviourist approach and the separation of specialties. To achieve that result the three masters and their apprentices needed to ”synergise” their activities by discussion to explore their differences and to sharpen up the points of agreement. Working in cooperation after WW2 when academic work returned to normal they might have formed a critical mass in the professions and made a difference.

However there was no synergy because Parsons went in a different direction after 1937 and Popper never engaged with sociology or economics in a serious way after 1945.

The points of agreement were: (1) methodological individualism, (2) the search for true and realistic universal laws (but not historical laws), (3) rationality in the relationship of ends and means, (4) the normative and voluntarist orientation of human action, (5) subjectivism (but not psychologism), (6) action occurs in real time, (7) rejection of historicism (though Parsons did not use the term).