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Home , Ernest Burgess, Randall Collins

Sociology, Economic

Germany’s problems, Jewish sociologists such as Ernst While both ES and economics study the economy in Borinski (Tougaloo College), John Herz (Howard its multiple expressions, they are at variance with each University), Viktor Lowenfeld (Hampton Institute), Ernst other. At the risk of oversimplification, the starting point Manasse (North Carolina Central University), Fritz for economics is the isolated rational economic actor; Pappenheim (Talladega College), and Donald Rasmussen whereas for ES, actors always operate in social, thus rela- (Talladega College) obtained positions at black colleges tional, contexts and do so reflexively. where their experience as minorities was an educational asset in their professional and personal interactions with EARLIER PERSPECTIVES black college students, faculty, and the community The sociological look upon economic phenomena has (Cunnigen 2003). marked from its outset, so it is meaningful to The has traditionally minimized distinguish ES into old and new segments. Old ES refers the contributions of people of color, women, gays and largely to the relevant parts in the work of sociology’s lesbians, and other minorities. Consequently, it is of man- founding fathers, for example, Karl Marx, Émile ifest importance that contemporary and future sociolo- Durkheim, , and Georg Simmel. Indeed, Marx gists utilize alternative theoretical frames to support the was concerned with the social designation of the com- recognition and canonization of marginalized scholars. modity and with commodity fetishism. He also analyzed Repudiation and revision of the traditional means of can- capitalism’s origins as well as capital as a social relation. onizing sociologists will result in the overdue and deserved Durkheim was directly interested in this field, which he— recognition of the contributions of scholars who, by virtue along with Weber—named as such. He was particularly of their race, sex or gender, or sexual preference, existed as concerned with the development of the division of labor “outsiders within” their own profession. while he criticized economists for their tendency to con- SEE ALSO Chicago School; Du Bois, W. E. B.; Sociology struct an exclusive economic world, which was arbitrary and one-sided because the social dimensions were excluded or neglected, whereas he linked to mod- BIBLIOGRAPHY ern economic activity. For his part, Weber delved at length Bernard, L. L. 1948. Sociological Trends in the South. Social in the sociological study of economic and of Forces 27 (1): 12–19. processes pointing out that economic action is a special Cunnigen, Donald. 2003. The Legacy of Ernst Borinski: The form of social action. Weber advocated considering both Production of an African-American Sociological Tradition. the meaning with which actors imbue their economic Teaching Sociology 31: 397–411. action (e.g., in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Henry, Charles P. 1995. Abram Harris, E. Franklin Frazier, and Capitalism [1904–1905]) as well as the social dimension Ralph Bunche: The Howard School of Thought on the Problem of Race. National Political Science Review 5: 36–56. of economic phenomena. By contrast Simmel’s work is Himes, Sandy J. 1949. Development and Status of Sociology in not systematically concerned with ES and is only dotted Negro Colleges. Journal of Educational Sociology 23 (1): with references of an ES concern, such as analyses of inter- 17–32. est, competition, and interlinkages between money and Wright, Earl, II. 2002. Using the Master’s Tools: Atlanta modernity. University and American Sociology, 1896–1924. Sociological Sociological interest in the economy subsided during Spectrum 22 (1): 15–39. the 1920s, although authors such as Joseph A. Schumpeter, , , and Karl Earl Wright II Polanyi offered contributions to the discussion. Since the 1960s, the attempts of some economists to extend economic interpretations into social phenomena—an approach called economic imperialism—challenged the established division of labor between economics and soci- SOCIOLOGY, ology. This provoked sociologists’ response, which culmi- ECONOMIC nated in the reemergence of ES. The wider frames of the (ES) forms a specific sociological sub- new ES, as Jens Beckert (1996) pointed out, are delin- field. As with sociology—its genus—itself a multipara- eated by two parameters: It aims towards a sociological digm discipline, there is some disagreement about what understanding of economic processes and structures, and exactly falls under ES’s rubric. To counter this difficulty critiques established economic types of analysis. In the ES has been defined broadly as “the sociological perspec- meantime, increasingly, mainstream economics has come tive applied to economic phenomena” (Smelser and to accept a role for the social dimension, although concep- Swedberg 2005, p. 3). tualized quite differently than it is in ES.

668 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2ND EDITION Sociology, Economic

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES While the expansion of empirical research continues, Mark Granovetter first discussed the new ES in ES’s theoretical production is currently not keeping up “Economic Action and ” (1985). with expectations and needs to advance. Accordingly, Granovetter, a key figure in ES, has pointed out that all researchers such as Swedberg suggest that elaborations on economic action and phenomena are embedded in con- the sociological concept of interest and on an interest-based crete networks of social relations, social structures, norma- concept of institutions may provide new vistas for ES. tive arrangements, and institutions that constrain and SEE ALSO Sociology channel them in particular ways. Unlike the view of Karl Polanyi, for Granovetter these actions and phenomena are more thoroughly embedded in modern than in BIBLIOGRAPHY premodern ones. The concept of social embeddedness, Beckert, Jens. 1996. What is Sociological about Economic which is identified with ES, despite some attempts to Sociology? Uncertainty and the Embeddedness of Economic define it narrowly, remains a general concept. Action. Theory and 25: 803–840. Granovetter’s own work on how people obtain a job Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social at the local level was an early application of the social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of embeddedness idea. He argues that getting a job, or Knowledge. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. accessing the labor market, is intrinsically a social process Biggart, Nicole Woolsey, ed. 2002. Readings in Economic linked to the job seeker’s social ties in specific social Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell. milieus, which are formulated and distributed under the Fligstein, Neil. 2001. The Architecture of Markets: An Economic overdetermining impact of social class. This thesis, known Sociology of Twenty-First Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. as the strength-of-weak-ties thesis, has found corroboration in a wide range of social contexts in the United States and Granovetter, Mark. 1973. The Strength of Weak Ties. American Journal of Sociology 78: 1360–1380. elsewhere, for instance in Greece and Russia. Recent U.S. research with respect to other social divisions, such as gen- Granovetter, Mark. 1983. The Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited. 1: 201–233. der, race, and ethnicity, on matters pertaining to employ- ment and work have identified the prevalence of Granovetter, Mark. 1985. Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness. American Journal continuities in the transmittance of social inequalities of Sociology 91 (3): 481–510. rather than of discontinuities, which highlights the multi- Granovetter, Mark, and Richard Swedberg, eds. 2001. The faceted social dimension in labor markets. Sociology of Economic Life. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Another key concept in ES is that of the social construc- Press. tion of economic phenomena, which draws from the theory Guillén, Mauro F., , , and Marshall of constructivism advanced by Peter Berger and Thomas Meyer, eds. 2002. The New Economic Sociology: Developments Luckmann in 1966. Social construction refers to the fact in an Emerging Field. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. that economic arrangements, institutions, and regulations Koniordos, Sokratis M. 2005. Informal Support Networks in the do not have an a priori independent existence. Instead, they Making of Small Independent Businesses: Beyond “Strong” are formulated as a result of human social interaction and and “Weak” Ties? In Networks, Trust and Social Capital: purposeful intervention that take place in a specific social Theoretical and Empirical Investigations from Europe, ed. context. Once, however, an economic structure comes into Sokratis M. Koniordos, 167–185. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. being it may assume an objectivity that constrains and Mouw, Ted. 2000. Job Relocation and the Racial Gap in impacts upon economic action and practices. Unemployment in Detroit and Chicago, 1980 to 1990. American Sociological Review 65 (5): 730–53. Thematically, research in ES has expanded to include Mouw, Ted. 2003. Social Capital and Finding a Job: Do analyses at the micro-, mezzo-, and macro-levels of firms, Contacts Matter? American Sociological Review 68 (6): markets, consumption, entrepreneurship, business 868–898. groups, money, migration, networks, trust, development, Pager, Devah, and Lincoln Quillian. 2005. Walking the Talk? formal/informal work, varieties of capitalism, forms of What Employers Say Versus What They Do. American capital, other economic institutions, the role of culture, Sociological Review 70 (3): 355–380. and other areas, with most interesting results. Such Parsons, Talcott, and Neil J. Smelser. 1956. Economy and Society: research has contributed to the deciphering of aspects of A Study in the Integration of Economic and . the economy, and some of the most attractive examples of Glencoe, IL: Free Press. ES’s fruition are to be found in the work of, among oth- Polanyi, Karl. 1957. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon ers, on the shifting meaning of money Press. (1994), Richard Swedberg on Weber’s ES (1998), and Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1994. Capitalism, Socialism, and Neil Fligstein on contemporary market societies (2001). Democracy. London: Routledge.

INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2ND EDITION 669 Sociology, European

Smelser, Neil J., and Richard Swedberg, eds. 2005. The the term sociology, Karl Marx (1818–1883), Émile Handbook of Economic Sociology, 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Durkheim (1858–1917), and Max Weber (1864–1920). Princeton University Press and New York: Russell Sage The last three are conventionally represented as the Foundation. founding fathers of the discipline. Swedberg, Richard. 1998. Max Weber and the Idea of Economic Sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. The great question posed by these thinkers is that Swedberg, Richard. 2003. Principles of Economic Sociology. of understanding the history and consequences of the Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. seismic changes associated with the origins of modern Swedberg, Richard. 2004. What Has Been Accomplished in capitalism (Marx and Weber), industrialization and indi- New Economic Sociology and Where Is It Heading? vidualization (Comte and Durkheim), and the new social European Journal of Sociology 45 (3): 317–330. order of modernity (Weber). For Marx the central focus is Swedberg, Richard. 2006. The Toolkit of Economic Sociology, upon the global effects of the capitalist mode of produc- Working Paper No. 22. Center for the Study of Economy tion with its new classes and class conflict, the alienating and Society Working Papers Series, Cornell University. impact of new forms of factory production, and the rise of http://www.economyandsociety.org/publications/wp22_swed berg_toolkit04.pdf. the working class movement. For Weber, the concern shifts to understanding the ethical and religious roots of Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald, and Sheryl Skaggs. 2002. Sex Segregation, Labor Process Organization, and Gender rational conduct and institutions in Europe and North Earnings Inequality. American Journal of Sociology 108: America, comparative analysis of earlier European social 102–128. structures and non-European civilizations, and character- Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald, Catherine Zimmer, Kevin istic features of modern society (the modern state and Stainback, et al. 2006. Documenting Desegregation: rational administration, modern capitalism, democratic Segregation in American Workplaces by Race, Ethnicity, and politics, bureaucracy, and so on). With Durkheim the Sex, 1966–2003. American Sociological Review 71 (4): central problem is the changing basis of social solidarity 565–588. (from mechanical to organic solidarity) and the corrosive Trigilia, Carlo. 2002. Economic Sociology: State, Market and Society in Modern Capitalism, trans. Nicola Owtram. Oxford: impact of individualism upon traditional social orders. Blackwell. Sociology adopted two related perspectives, one Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of focusing upon the structure and dialectics of social rela- Interpretive Sociology, trans. Ephraim Fischoff et al. 2 vols. tions (the European paradigm) and the other emphasizing Berkeley: University of California Press. the evolution of whole societies along social Darwinian Weber, Max. 1999. Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, principles. The latter is best represented by early American intro. by Anthony Gidens; trans. Talcott Parsons. London: sociology, especially in the writings of William Graham Routledge. (Orig. pub. 1904–1905.) Sumner (1840–1910), (1841–1913), Yakoubovitch, Valery. 2005. Weak Ties, Information, and and Franklin H. Giddings (1855–1931). The guiding Influence: How Workers Find Jobs in a Local Russian Labor Market. American Sociological Review 70 (3): 408–421. source is not Marx or Durkheim but the English evolu- tionist and individualistic thinker Herbert Spencer Zelizer, Viviana A. 1994. The Social Meaning of Money. New York: Basic Books. (1820–1903). Evolutionism informed by individualism and native pragmatism provided the framework for spec- ulations about social organization, institutional adapta- Sokratis M. Koniordos tion, and change. However, the European tradition was not totally ignored. It entered into the texture of American sociology through the work of (1854–1926), the founder of the first SOCIOLOGY, American department of sociology at the University of EUROPEAN Chicago in 1892 and influential editor of the American European sociological thought can be traced to three Journal of Sociology (from 1895). Through Small’s teach- major sources: the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, of ing American students gained access to the conflict tradi- the eighteenth century; the Industrial Revolution; and the tion of Georg Simmel (1858–1918). Small also helped romantic period’s counterreaction to these ideological, shape the Chicago School of W. I. Thomas (1863–1947), social, and political changes. Although there are impor- Robert Ezra Park (1864–1944), and tant prefigurations of sociology (for example in the (1886–1966). This is the context in which American soci- thought of Montesquieu, Marquis de Condorcet, Adam ology discovered its unique philosophical voice in the Smith, and others), the roots of modern sociology lie in symbolic interactionist philosophy of George Herbert the work of Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who coined Mead (1863–1931).

670 INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, 2ND EDITION