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Economic Sociology and Capitalism 2 economic sociology_ the european electronic newsletter Vol ume 18, N umber 1 | November 20 16 18.1 Editor Sascha Münnich, University of Göttingen Book Reviews Editor Lisa Suckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Editorial Board Patrik Aspers, Uppsala University Jens Beckert, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne Johan Heilbron, Centre de Sociologie Européenne, Paris Richard Swedberg, Cornell University, Ithaca Table of Contents Note from the editor: Economic Sociology and capitalism _2 Understanding the ‘Economic’ in New Economic Sociology by Jan Sparsam_6 Sociology and capitalism research by Klaus Kraemer_18 Interview: Economic Sociology and capitalism Christoph Deutschmann interviewed by Sascha Münnich _29 Book Reviews_ 38 http://econsoc.mpifg.de Note from the editor 2 Note from the editor Economic Sociology and capitalism not been fostered by a society-wide ‘sudden love’ for capi- talism or radical liberalism, but depended, as it had always The tides of economic sociology are intimately linked to done, on capitalism’s capacity to promise and secure stabil- the fate of the market in modern societies, particularly its ity, growth and a high standard of living, at least for those impact as a dominant blueprint for the formation of eco- groups (of employers and workers alike) who could stand nomic relations. In one of the founding scripts of New the test of global free trade. The financial crisis reminded Economic Sociology, Swedberg claimed that sociology had everybody of capitalism’s resilient habit to not care about lost interest in markets as social arenas after the age of the stability of the whole system if that comes into conflict classical sociologists (Swedberg 2003: 266). After Weber, with private profit interests. As Klaus Kraemer shows in his Simmel, Marshall and Durkheim had passed on the torch – article in this issue, mainstream sociology as well as eco- all of whom had had a self-evident interest in ”socio- nomic sociologists had over the course of the Golden Era economics” and markets – Parsonian thinking became become reluctant to even use the concept of capitalism. dominant post 1950s. Here, the economy was treated as a subsystem that functions in its inner (market) core very Today, it seems that speaking of ‘capitalism’ as the correct much like economists describe it (Krippner 2001), while concept to label the contemporary economic order is high- around it cultural and political action and system logics ly favored again among social scientists. Since the onset of define individual preferences and principles of institutional the Greek sovereign debt crisis in 2010/11, many political regulation. Historically, this understanding of markets as economists in Europe and North America have been en- framed or governed by society paralleled political thought gaging in intense debates about the relation between in the “Golden Era” of macroeconomic governance and capitalism and democracy in the face of European austerity welfare state expansion in Europe and North America. measures and the widespread ascendance of right-wing populism (Streeck 2014; Crouch 2011; Woodruff 2016). In the 1980s and 1990s, however, markets were re- This raises the question which insights economic sociolo- discovered on both levels simultaneously: the global tri- gists can contribute to understanding contemporary capi- umph of free trade and competition-friendly economic and talism and its precarious stability as a social order. Specifi- social policies co-evolved with sociologists’ renewed inter- cally speaking, the question is which particular social rela- est in what sorts of social formations emerge in markets if tions make markets capitalist, and what how do the social, and after they are freed from state and law regulation. In political, cultural and cognitive embeddedness of markets their many empirical studies on how markets develop and (Zukin, DiMaggio 1990) contribute to the functions and function, a new generation of economic sociologists dynamics of capitalism. These questions define the topic of showed how far from reality all economic – and at the the first issue of the 2016/17 volume of the EESN. time most political – perspectives were that assumed that stability, cooperation and efficiency emerged in markets. It is my impression that there are four major fields of eco- Instead, they showed that if free competition is opened up nomic sociological research that provide important insights for market actors, habits, routines, norms, networks and for the analysis of contemporary capitalism. These are (1) conventions take over, spark all different forms of social the construction of calculation and future expectations as exclusion and create power imbalances. calculative devices for investment, entrepreneurial innova- tion and strategies of production and marketing, (2) the While the faith in free markets started diminishing after social structuring of resource and revenue distribution in the problematic consequences of globalization and welfare markets, (3) the cultural and political legitimation of the state privatization became visible in the late 1990s, the core institutions of capitalism, such as private property, financial turmoil of 2008 with its unavoidable full-frontal firm control or contract law, and (4) the social formation of interventionist stabilization of national economies remind- consumer demand. ed societies – and sociologists – of the fact that they live in a capitalist market order. Contrary to what many left-wing (1) Joseph Schumpeter has stressed that if we accept the politicians today still believe, the turn to deregulation had equilibrium model of the fully competitive market, the core economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter Volume 18, Number 1 (November 2016) Note from the editor 3 capitalist elements of growth and profit cannot be ex- ture all potential distributive effects of markets, if markets plained (Schumpeter 2012). Instead, innovation that are understood as organizational patterns for group inter- ‘dares’ to try new combinations of production factors de- est and collective action. The long lasting and extensive pends on entrepreneurial action. Sociological perspectives debate about different “varieties of capitalism” (Hall, have turned Schumpeter’s classical celebration of the indi- Soskice 2001) in comparative and international political vidual genius from ‘its head to its feet’ and pointed to- economy has also been taken up by economic sociologists wards the importance of social structures that foster en- in this context. Researchers who have studied structural trepreneurial behavior (Stark, Beunza 2009; Deutschmann affinities between market organization and political institu- 2010). Particularly in the uncertain context of market rela- tion-building show that institutionalized production re- tions, in which double contingency is ubiquitous, gimes do not only create complementary group organiza- knowledge and cognitions become important facilitators tion among firms and trade-unions that may facilitate or for rational planning into the future (MacKenzie 2006; hinder corporatist coordination for policy-making. Moreo- Caliskan, Callon 2009; MacKenzie 2011). In this context, ver, these national production regimes will, vice versa, also some authors describe the role of narratives and imagina- be supported and defended by distributional alliances tions for making calculative economic action possible in an within markets, intensifying and reproducing existing struc- uncertain market environment (Beckert 2016; Castoriadis, tures of resource and power inequality (Beyer 2010; Mills Curtis 1997: 213ff.). This is even more so for the analysis et al. 2008; Hollingsworth, Streeck 1994). Economic soci- of financial markets in which future expectations are trad- ologists such as Harrison White have examined such inner- ed at present values (Esposito 2011). For the analysis of market power coalitions and organizational patterns, and contemporary capitalism, it is important to study how explained how producer networks form niches and coali- social patterns of knowledge shape the direction of in- tions (White 2002). These networks may eventually use vestment and innovation into the future, therefore foster- their power to guard their market positions by institutions. ing (or potentially blocking) a growing marketization and However, a more encompassing answer to the distribu- opening (or closing) opportunities for profit. An important tional effects of market embeddedness depends on how part of economic sociology research has always been the the double layer of distributional principles in markets – influence of economic knowledge on real economic prac- networks on the one hand and institutions on the other – tices, the ‘performativity’ of economics, and this begs the can be integrated into one framework. A broader sociolo- question how the rational, calculative habitus of ‘capital- gy of market distribution would be needed that integrates ists’ is inserted into economic relations and organizations primary market distribution through networks and second- as a form of dominant knowledge or a measurement tool, ary re-distribution through social institutions. This will help and how it is able to drive out other action orientations. to understand better the multiple distributional effects of capitalist economies as well as the socio-structural dimen- (2) Possibly due to market sociology’s early, and maybe its sions of capital accumulation. Elementaries of such
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