Journal of Classical
Sociology
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The Influence of Sociology on Economics: Selected Themes and
Instances from Classical Sociological Theory
Milan Zafirovski
Journal of Classical Sociology 2005; 5; 123
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X05053488
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Journal of Classical Sociology
Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi Vol 5(2): 123–156 DOI: 10.1177/1468795X05053488
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The Influence of Sociology on Economics
Selected Themes and Instances from Classical Sociological Theory
MILAN ZAFIROVSKI University of North Texas, USA
ABSTRACT This article presents selected pertinent instances of the influence of
(especially classical) sociological theory on economics. Its explicit justification and
goal is to detect and illustrate the almost unknown, ignored or dismissed bearing
of sociological theory on its economic counterpart. Its implicit justification is
given by the epistemological principle of the unity of knowledge, especially of
social science, serving as an analytical framework or master narrative for exploring
these relations, which extends the scope of the article beyond simply a history of
ideas. The key finding is that the influence of sociological theory on economics is
related to the project for unification of social science and thus the epistemological
principle of the unity of knowledge. As a rare attempt at exploring the theoretical
impact of sociology on economics, the article aims to help abridge a gap in the
current literature.
KEYWORDS economics, economic sociology, political economy, sociology
Economics must be the handmaid of sociology.
(Philip Wicksteed)
In the current literature, there are works pertaining directly or indirectly to the
impact of economics on sociology, especially sociological rational choice theory
(for example, Beckert, 1996; Hirsch et al., 1987; Swedberg, 2001; also FourcadeGourinchas, 2001; Guillén, 2003; also Abell, 2000; Baron and Hannan, 1994;
Fararo, 1993; Kiser, 1999; Swedberg, 2003). There are also writings on the
influence of economics on other social sciences, including political science, law
and anthropology. However, the influence in the opposite direction from sociology (and other social sciences) to economics is rarely analyzed or even noticed,
despite intimations, recognitions or suggestions (for example, Fligstein, 2001;
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Swedberg, 2003) to that effect. Such an omission may reflect and reinforce many
economists’ impression of the self-sufficiency and insulation of their discipline
relative to sociology and other social sciences, though economics ‘pays a heavy
price for its self-imposed isolation’ (Bowles, 1998: 101). Admittedly, most
economists ‘are surprisingly reluctant to believe that reading anthropology,
biology, history, psychology, or sociology is important for doing good economic
analysis’ (Bergstrom, 1996: 1905). Armed and ‘blessed’ with their proverbial ‘veil
of ignorance’, ‘expeditionary economists’ (Demsetz, 1997) or ‘vigilantes of
economic correctness’ (Hodgson, 1998) tend – though with rare exceptions (for
example, Becker and Murphy, 2000; Hands, 2001) – to ignore ideas outside of
economics, particularly those originating in sociology and affecting in some way
economic theory, methodology and research. Alternatively, they have acquired, to
use Veblen’s term, a ‘trained incapacity’ to be appreciative and even knowledgeable of these ideas and their possible or actual relevance for economics – an
instance of what Gouldner (1970) would call the ‘normal pathology’ of modern
economics.
Instead, most economists have a proclivity to accentuate the impact of
economics, as an imperial science with an ever-expanding domain (Iannaccone,
1998), or a universal theory (plus method and grammar) for all social science, on
sociology and other disciplines. They assume the self-assigned mission of expeditionary forces (Demsetz, 1997) seeking to spread by ‘word and sword’ economics’ ‘sacred precincts’ (Schumpeter’s somewhat sarcastic phrase), namely the
‘laws of “economic man” ’ (Turner, 1998), to other social scientists, particularly
those agnostic, skeptical or ignorant with regard to these ‘immutable truths’.
Equipped with such ‘God-given knowledge’, including a sort of religious-like
faith in the market’s invisible hand – and often acting accordingly, for example,
with fervor akin to that of American moral-religious entrepreneurs (Munch,
2001) – they see all social science as an appendix or extension of economics. They
rationalize their attempts at colonization (Archer and Tritter, 2000; Lie, 1997) of
sociology and other social sciences by deploring their vices and sins and extolling
the virtues of the economic approach to human behavior or the rational choice
model. These tendencies to economic imperialism (Boulding, 1969) – that is, the
‘deployment of the rational choice approach throughout the social sciences’
(Fararo, 2001: 177) – anticipate or follow the ‘revenge of homo economicus’
(Bowles and Gintis, 1993), once ‘presumed [almost] dead’ or discredited, within
mainstream economics since the 1970s.
Nevertheless, the influence of sociological theory on economics is far from
being absent or impertinent, especially in the early periods of the disciplines, albeit
the reverse impact, particularly on contemporary sociology, is perceived as
stronger (Baron and Hannan, 1994; Kalleberg, 1995). A case in point involves
Comte and John Stuart Mill, with the latter admittedly (Hayek, 1950: 17) taking
the concepts of statics and dynamics from the former and introducing them to
economics. Yet most economists, while praising the originality and importance of
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the ideas of economic statics and dynamics, seem unaware of or disregard their
sociological origins. This is just one case of the manifest or latent pertinent
influence of sociological theory on economics, as shown below.
The following identifies a number of selected themes and instances of the
impact of sociology on economics, focusing on the discipline’s classical or
traditional phases. A manifest rationale or purpose of this endeavor is to show and
illustrate the less known, neglected or downplayed influence of sociological theory
on economic analysis. Still, this exercise purports to provide more than a simple
history of ideas in sociology and economics. Its complementary, latent rationale is
provided by the epistemological question of the unity of knowledge about social
reality – an issue going back to Aristotle and culminating in Comte – which will
serve as an implicit analytical framework or master narrative. By explicitly examining the influence of sociological theory on economics, this exercise will implicitly
demonstrate or intimate (the idea of) the unity of social science, that is, that
knowledge about human society is (to cite Comte and Schumpeter) an ‘indivisible
whole’, just as is that society. Notably, this examination can serve to indicate or
argue for the unity of social theory, with the corollary that economic theory is its
special case. Thus, the epistemological question is highlighted by the tendency for
many enlightened economists, as well as most sociologists, to seek or advocate the
unity of social science and theory by recognizing or suggesting the role of
sociology in economics. Before proceeding, a disclaimer: this exercise does not
aim at a comprehensive account of that role, but only to offer pertinent
illustrations for it and so by implication for the search/idea of the unity of social
theory. The article is organized as follows. A first section concerns the general
theoretical influence of sociology on economics. A second section focuses on the
idea of economic sociology and its role on economics. A third section examines
the impact of the social embeddedness conception on economics. A fourth section
documents the influence of the concepts of social statics and dynamics on
economics. A final section concludes.
The General Influence of Sociological Theory on
Economics
The general influence of sociology on economics revolves around the treatment of
the latter as a branch of the former or a general unified social science within an
epistemological framework of the unity of knowledge about society, including
economy.1 Comte and then other classical sociologists like Spencer, Durkheim and
(partly) Weber propose such a treatment to be adopted in part by some early
economists, for example Mill, Jevons, Wicksteed, the Austrians, Pareto, Marshall
and Keynes (the father and the son).2 For Comte and others, the ontological
rationale for this status of economics vis-a-vis sociology resides in the fact that
economy is empirically l’économie sociale, that is, one of the integral elements of
society. This ontology requires establishing a corresponding relation of economics
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to sociology as a unified social science in accordance with Comte’s epistemological
principle of scientific unity.3 Hence, he states that economic analysis proper should
not be conceived or cultivated apart from the whole of sociological analysis (en
passant, a statement prominent economists like Wicksteed enthusiastically quote,
as shown below). In general, what Comte calls universal social interconnection
leads to or justifies the unity of the science of society, which analyzes each
constitutive element, including economy, ‘in the light of the whole system’.
To exemplify this Comtean influence, Mill views economics or political
economy proper as the integral part of a broader discipline termed the science of
social economy, which is essentially equivalent to Comte’s sociology by virtue of
dealing with human agents in the context of society. In Mill’s terms, political
economy is the science of the production and distribution of wealth, and the
science of social economy is one of the ‘laws of society, or the laws of human
nature in the social state’ (1974 [1844]: 133). Whereas the former analyzes
humankind as engaged ‘solely in acquiring and consuming wealth’, the latter
includes ‘every part of man’s nature’ or the ‘conduct or condition of man in
society’ (1974 [1844]: 136). Hence, Mill’s political economy is not the science of
all society but a branch of that science, that is, Comte’s sociology as the realization
of the principle of scientific unity. (This sheds light on Mill’s remark that ‘a person
is not likely to be a good economist who is nothing else’ [1887: 82].) Mill’s
implied ontological ground for such relations of economics and sociology is in
essence déjà vu in Comte. In a Comtean vein, Mill states that since social
phenomena act and react on each other, they ‘cannot rightly be understood
apart’; and so economic generalizations, though possible and useful, ‘must
necessarily be relative to a given form of civilization and a given stage of social
advancement’ (1887: 82). In particular, when Mill ‘came to write his Principles he
abandoned his ambition to work out a purely abstract theory and adopted a
broader view of the scope and method of political economy under the influence of
Comte’ (Bladen, 1941: 18), that is to say, the Comtean (positivist) principle
(Vandenberghe, 1999) of scientific unity. As Marshall also observes, Mill in his
mature years, mostly under Comte’s influence, tried to make prominent the
‘human, as opposed to the mechanical, element in economics’ (1961 [1891]: app.
J.4, para. 2). It was that influence that largely transformed Mill into a herald of
social economics (Jensen, 1996) within traditional economic science. Moreover,
in some views Mill, by being ‘admirer of Comte and Tocqueville, might also
[besides Spencer] make a passable candidate as a “founding father of English
sociology” ’ (Kumar, 2001: 42).
Further, such neoclassical or marginalist economists as Jevons, Wicksteed,
Edgeworth and Marshall seem directly or indirectly influenced by the Comtean
ideas on the relations between economy and society, between economics and
sociology, and on the unity of social science. For illustration, unexpectedly for
neoclassical economists, Wicksteed even uses these ideas as a sort of credo for his
major work (The Common Sense of Political Economy) by citing Comte in the
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prologue! Cited is Comte’s following statement (in French with no English
translation): ‘L’analyse économique proprement dite ne me semble pas devoir
finalement être conçue ni cultivée, soit dogmatiquement, soit historiquement, à part
de l’ensemble de l’analyse sociologique, soit statique, soit dynamique’4 (Wicksteed
1933 [1910]: 1).
In addition, Wicksteed’s (1933 [1910]: 783) own statement that economics ‘must be the handmaid of sociology’ further reflects the impact of
Comte’s ideas and is perhaps a heresy to most neoclassical and contemporary
economists. The latter may raise the question as to why economics, presumably
the earliest and most advanced of the social sciences, should have such a
subordinate status vis-a-vis sociology, a putatively insignificant late-comer and
under-developer. Moreover, they would rather argue that sociology should be ‘the
handmaiden’ of economics as the queen of the social sciences. Wicksteed (1933
[1910]: 767) implicitly provides an answer by suggesting, à la Comte, that
justification for the status of economics vs sociology is provided by the essential
character of economic laws as the laws of human conduct in society, rather than
natural, biological or technological phenomena. In his view, a more particular
rationale lies in the historical-empirical fact that economy, including the market,
has usually been influenced and governed by extraneous social forces – that is, it
‘never has been left to itself’ (Wicksteed, 1933 [1910]: 784). In an epistemological note, Wicksteed accepts the Comtean idea of the unity of knowledge as
well as the hierarchy of sciences, as intimated by his rejection of materialism in, as
he put it, the ‘Comte’s sense of attempting to treat the higher sciences [sociology]
by the methods of the lower [physics]’ (1905: 433).
So, in a way, does Jevons, as he, in Wicksteed’s words, tries to ‘erect a
hierarchy of science [in the manner of Comte] by actually building the higher
[social sciences] on the assured basis of the lower [mechanics]’ (1905: 433).
Overall, even Jevons, one of the purest marginalist economists, was not immune
to the influence of Comtean ideas, as evidenced by his pleading for a sociological
approach to economy, called economic sociology (discussed below), in order to
help economics reconstitute itself. Neither was another pure marginalist, Edgeworth. In a manner cognate to Wicksteed, Edgeworth also places economics
within sociology by denoting the ‘Calculus of Variations’ in (marginal) utility
theory as, quoting Comte, the ‘most sublime branch of [sociological] analysis’
(1967 [1881]: 109). Like Wicksteed, Edgeworth (1967 [1881]: 109–10) essentially adopts Comte’s views by characterizing (marginal) economics as the ‘most
applicable’ branch of sociology as an integral social science according to the
Comtean principle of the scientific unity of knowledge.
The impact of sociological ideas is less apparent, but not absent, in the case
of Marshall and his disciples. Though suspicious of Comte’s sociological imperialism, Marshall treats economics as a study of ‘that part of individual and social
existence which is most closely linked to the attainment and use of the material
requisites of well-being’ (1961 [1891]: 20), the branch of a broader ‘moral
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science’ dealing with that existence in its totality. Also, Marshall’s (1961
[1891]: 27) definition of economic laws as special cases of social laws indicates or
leads to a treatment of economy/economics as the integral part of society/
sociology. Apparently, what Marshall and other British economists, including Mill
and Keynes (the father and the son), call moral or social science, Comte as well as
Spencer denote as sociology. One can ask if Mill, Marshall and Keynes mean
sociology in the sense of Comte and Spencer when they use the expression moral
or social science. An objection may be that they refer primarily to social or moral
philosophy, only secondarily to an empirical science of societal facts. Still, Mill’s
phrase ‘in Political Economy, as in all the other branches of social philosophy’
(1974 [1844]: 109) suggests that he understands the latter in the sense of
Comtean sociology as a unified social science. For Mill no doubt treats economics
as a science; otherwise, it makes no sense for this science to be a branch of
something that is not science (social philosophy). (At any rate, the distinction
between social philosophy and sociology was rather fluid at the time; consider
Comte’s view of sociology as a branch of positive philosophy.) This interpretation
is also supported by Marshall’s phrase the ‘intensive study of economics and other
branches of social science’, though he adds ‘perhaps the use of the term Sociology
is premature’ if it signifies a ‘unification of social sciences’ (1961 [1891]: app. C,
n. 52), suggesting that the Comtean unity of knowledge, while desirable, is not
yet attained. In turn, one can object that the diminishing references to Comte
among English economists after Mill’s work August Comte and Positivism makes
one wonder if the Comtean pathway represented a sustained direction of influence. Nonetheless, the fact that Wicksteed made approving references to Comte
as late as 1910 – the year of publication of his Common Sense of Political Economy
and almost half a century after Mill’s work (1865) – suggests a sort of sustained
direction of Comtean influence, though more precision is needed about how
these appropriations evolved. Moreover, as late as 1921, another neoclassical
(American) economist, Frank Knight, made a positive reference to ‘Comte’s
arrangement of the sciences in the order of generality of the principles they
establish’, and submitted that the ‘same [Comtean] principles are applicable
within any grand division of knowledge’ (1964 [1921]: ch.1, n. 5).
If the above interpretation is correct, Marshall’s dictum (taken from Mill
and then adopted by Keynes5 senior and junior) that economics is a branch of
moral or social science – rather than physics or mechanics, as in contemporary
economics6 (Stiglitz, 2002) – is a variation on, or similar to, Comte’s theme that
political economy is part of sociology in the sense of an integral science of society
seeking to attain the unity of knowledge. Moreover, influenced by Comte, directly
and in an indirect way via Mill and Spencer,7 Marshall recognizes and incorporates
some sociological and historical elements in his economic analysis. First, Marshall
in his discussion of the scope and method of economics (in appendix C of his
Principles of Political Economy) acknowledges that Comte and Spencer had
‘unsurpassed knowledge and great genius’ and rendered ‘epochs in thought by
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their broad surveys and their suggestive hints’. Notably, Marshall, in his own
words, ‘fully’ concedes to Comte that ‘it is the duty of those who are giving their
chief work to a limited field, to keep up close and constant correspondence with
those who are engaged in neighbouring fields’ (1961 [1891]: app. C), with a hint
at the need of such a relation between economics and sociology. Admittedly,
‘Comte did good service therefore by insisting that the solidarity of social
phenomena must render the work of exclusive specialists even more futile in social
than in physical science [with] Mill conceding this’ (1961 [1891]: app. C).
This intimates Marshall’s (qualified) adoption of the Comtean project of,
as he put it, a ‘unification of social sciences’, though he views this goal as not
reached yet and so the term sociology premature. In some interpretations,
Marshall:
. . . was no Comtean but he was for all that convinced that the useful
economist has to be as interdisciplinary in approach as was required to
capture the multi-faceted nature of the phenomena to be studied. Thus he
showed the psychologist’s interest in subjective perceptions including real
cost and non-hedonistic motivation, combining it with the sociologist’s
awareness that approbation and self-approbation are relevant even in the
economic marketplace (the reason why soulful capitalists resist pricecutting despite a recession, why sensitive workers eschew an abnormal
increase in effort, why conspicuous consumers prefer the fashionable to
the durable).
(Reisman, 1990: 264)
Notably, as well known to sociologists (but not to most economists), Parsons
recognizes latent sociological elements in Marshall’s work by including this ‘most
eminent economist of his generation’ into his ‘study in social theory with special
reference to a group of recent European writers’ (The Structure of Social Action–
1967 [1937]: 14), alongside Weber, Durkheim and Pareto. Yet Parsons fails to
mention that these sociological elements are due to Marshall’s documented
appreciation and partial appropriation of such sociologists as Comte (hardly
mentioned) and Spencer (‘dead’) as well as Comte’s admirer, Mill.
Marshall’s sociological awareness has been transmitted to his successors
like Pigou and John Neville Keynes (and his more famous son, John Maynard,
who was initially a Marshallian). Pigou’s recognition that economics cannot be
fully independent of sociology is implied in his definition of the former as the
science of economic welfare, and by the underlying notion of the latter as the
study of total social welfare, of which material well-being is part. J.N. Keynes
(1955 [1890]: 64) is more explicit by envisioning that at some future point
economics will be subordinated to a ‘body of general sociological doctrine’. This
is the point where sociology establishes wide generalizations, from which economics and other special social sciences can learn. Notably, Keynes identifies ‘one
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particular department of economic inquiry’ exhibiting close connections with
sociology in the Comtean sense of the general science of society – this is economic
dynamics or the theory of economic progress. He admits that because the
economic condition of any given stage is determined by the ‘general social
characteristics’ of the preceding stages, the theory of economic evolution cannot
be built independent of a sociological theory of the ‘general tendencies of social
development’. Instead, Keynes allows that the theory of economic progress can
‘with advantage be specially subordinated’ to the sociology of development.
Hence, among the branches of economics, he regards economic dynamics as the
most ‘distinctly subordinate’ to general sociology. Finally, in a vein akin to
Wicksteed and Marshall, Keynes implies that the underlying empirical rationale for
this subordination of economics to sociology resides in the fact that economic
laws are ‘laws of complex social facts’ rather than ‘simple laws of human nature’,
contrary to what most neoclassical and contemporary economists presume.
Among prominent neoclassical economists, Vilfredo Pareto represents one
of the most pertinent and dramatic examples of the general impact of sociology on
economics. Such an impact has reached the point of Pareto’s conversion from an
early mathematical economist to a mature sociological theorist, exemplified in his
voluminous Treatise on General Sociology, and included in Parsons’ Structure of
Social Theory on the account of his social theory. Pareto considers economics, as a
special social discipline, a constituent of sociology as a synthetic science of society
aiming at the synthesis of specialized knowledge. Despite his critique of Comte,
he expressed this idea in Comtean terms: since social life is the subject of many
studies forming specialized disciplines like economics, their synthesis purporting
to study human society in general is sociology.
No doubt, as in the case of Wicksteed’s heresy, contemporary economists
might and do question such views expressive of sociological imperialism, albeit
advanced by a former pure economist. In a Paretian sociological framework, the
rationale for viewing economics as a specialty of sociology lies in the fact that
economic laws and phenomena are special instances of social ones, simply that the
economy is a part of society. In Pareto’s words, the ‘states of the economic
system’ represent ‘particular cases of the general states of the sociological system’.
This position was supported by his views that the sociological system was ‘much
more complicated’ (1963 [1935]: 1442) than its economic part. Further, Pareto
suggests that the analysis of many phenomena of the economy is not to be done
‘without the aid of sociology’ (1963 [1935]: 1445), which hints at the idea of and
need for an economic sociology. Pareto defines economics as the study of logicorational actions driven by (material) interests, and sociology as, additionally,
dealing with – and focusing on – non-rational behaviors induced by residues or
(expressions of) sentiments and derivations or rationalizations (in Freud’s, not
Weber’s, sense). In consequence, Pareto views sociology as more complex than
economics. In his words (Pareto, 1963 [1935]: 1733–7), complications in
sociology are ‘greater still and by far’, since it, in addition to logical or rational
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action ‘alone envisaged’ in economics, studies non-logical conduct and, in
addition to logical reasoning, derivations. Prima facie, Pareto’s project of sociology as a synthetic science of society vis-a-vis economics as a specialized discipline
reflects or converges with Comte’s epistemological project of unification of the
social sciences, while criticizing his (and all prior) sociology as dogmatic. This
project enjoyed some influence among economists like Schumpeter as well as
sociologists (for example, Parsons), and is reflected in the ‘vogue’ (Samuelson,
1998: 1383) for Pareto’s sociology indicated by the famous Henderson sociological seminar at Harvard in the 1930s. In sum, Pareto, just like Schumpeter,
originally trained in economics and was influenced by and became interested in
sociology, making a ‘major contribution in the direction of fusing the two
disciplines’ (Morishima, 1998: xxiv–v), thus contributing to Comte’s aim of
unification of social science.
Sociological, especially Weberian as well as Spencerian, influences can also
be detected in Austrian economics, though most members are dismissive (for
example, Hayek and Mises) of (collectivist) sociologists, economists and philosophers, with Comte, Durkheim and Marx as the key targets. Moreover, some initially pure, technical or narrow Austrian economists have, under the influence of
classical sociologists like Weber (Swedberg, 1998), retained their early sociological
interests (Wieser), or evolved into sociologists (Schumpeter) and social philosophers (Mises and Hayek). In particular, Weber’s influence and legacy (Lachmann,
1971; Langlois, 1986) in Austrian economics is reflected inter alia in the following. First, influenced to an important extent by Weber’s conception of social
economy and economic sociology (Swedberg, 1998), Wieser (1967 [1914]:
151–3), characterizes economics as only one, albeit the most developed, phase and
vanguard of the general science of society or sociology. Alongside Schumpeter,
Wieser was the most sociologically minded early Austrian economist, more so than
his contemporaries Böhm-Bawerk8 and even Menger, who also viewed economics
as part of a broader social science. For instance, Wieser, influenced by Weber’s
project Grundriss der Sozialokonomik, participated in economic analysis by writing
the Theory of Social Economy, which his Austrian colleague Hayek lauded as the
greatest synthesis of economics and sociology in the second and third decades of
the 20th century. Further, following Schumpeter’s account, (historical) sociology
or sociological history ‘had been [Wieser’s] first interest, and it was to be the last
[for] the chief work of his later years centered in sociology [like Pareto]’ (1956:
301). This work includes what Schumpeter calls Wieser’s ‘great sociological book’
on power, which he published at the age of 74 (1956: 301).
In a similar vein, Mises describes economics as the (best elaborated)
‘branch of a more comprehensive science of sociology, extending its field but
expressing the same logical apparatus’ (1960: 68–9), which sounds almost like a
return to Comte, a bête noire for most Austrian economists. Starting with the
pseudo-Comtean premise that economics and sociology have the ‘same logical
apparatus’, Mises blends economic and sociological studies of phenomena ranging
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from markets, prices and private property to capitalism and socialism. For
instance, the subtitle of his book Socialism was ‘an economic and sociological
study’. He alternatively uses for sociology the term ‘praxeology’ in the sense of a
general theory of pragmatic (rational) human action or social praxis almost in the
sense of the young Marx. Ironically, here Mises reflects some views of those
sociologists dismissed as collectivist and thus, in Popper’s terms, as enemies of an
open society: Comte, by viewing economics as a branch of sociology, and Marx, in
adopting the term praxis. Another more recognized source is Weber’s sociological
theory of action. Admittedly, Mises’ praxeology was inspired by, if not borrowed
from, Weber’s conception and typology of social action (Lachmann, 1971),
especially the concept of purposeful, ends-rational (zweckrational), instrumental
or pragmatic action, as expounded in Economy and Society. For illustration, Mises’
praxeological economics is largely predicated on or influenced by Weber’s statement that economic theory (for example, the marginal utility conception) is
‘ “pragmatically” founded, that is, on the use of the categories of “ends” and
“means” ’ (1975 [1908]: 33). Weber calls this use of means and ends ‘rationalistic
method’ in economics as well as sociology, and Mises9 embraces this approach for
praxeology that, in a (too) restrictive reformulation of Weberian sociological
theory, defines human action as ipso facto instrumental, pragmatic or rational.
Further, Mises’ praxeology-cum-(quasi-)sociology is an ambitious attempt at
achieving the Comtean goal of unification of social science, which is not without
irony given his (and Hayek’s) distaste for Comte’s positivism, collectivism, and so
forth. In sum, for Mises, like Wieser and other early members of the Austrian
economic school, including Menger, economics is – as Schutz, influenced by this
school and Weber, notes – ‘only a part of sociology, though the most highly
developed part’ (1967: 243).
Another, ‘atypical Austrian’ (Arrow, 1994: 3) economist, Schumpeter is
perhaps the most important example, within this economic school, of the
influence of sociology on economics. Strongly attracted by sociological ideas,
especially those of his contemporary Weber, Schumpeter is remarkably prone to,
as he put it, invading the ‘sociologist’s preserves’, but doing economic sociology
rather (or more) than rational choice theory, unlike most contemporary economists. Further, in Schumpeter’s own words, his research agenda ‘always stayed
on the same plane–that of evolving a comprehensive sociology with a single aim’
(quoted in Swedberg, 1991: 87). For Schumpeter, like Wieser, Mises and other
Austrian economists, economics is a sub-discipline of sociology in the Comtean
sense of general social science. Akin to Comte, Schumpeter holds that the
ontological indivisibility of society requires the epistemological unity of social
science. Schumpeter (1949a [1911]: 1) emphatically states that society represents
an ‘indivisible whole’ of which economy is an integral element, with the corollary
or need of unified knowledge about that whole. To that extent, Schumpeter’s
economic and sociological works reflect and implement the Comtean epistemological premise of the unity or indivisibility of social science. Most of his analyses
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entail consistent attempts at fusing (Morishima 1998: xxiv–v) economic and
sociological arguments, as demonstrated in his writings on development and
entrepreneurship, comparative social systems (capitalism, socialism and democracy), classes, imperialism, business cycles, and so on. Perhaps more than anyone
else in Austrian, neoclassical and even contemporary economics, Schumpeter
epitomizes and confirms Mill’s dictum about a ‘good economist’ with broad
interests. In some evaluations, Schumpeter ‘was undoubtedly one of the greatest
economists, sociologists and social scientists of [the 20th] century [and only] two
names are mentioned as possible rivals – John Maynard Keynes and Max Weber’
(Haberler, 1994: xiv).10 At any rate, in early contemporary economics Schumpeter
is probably unique in his integration of economic and sociological approaches,
particularly his re-incorporation, through epistemological ideas and substantive
analyses, of economics into the body of social science, thus (unwittingly) coming
close to fulfilling the Comtean unification project. In addition to Comte’s latent
(unrecognized) influence in the principle of the unity of social reality and
knowledge, he acknowledged and appreciated that of other classical sociologists,
above all Weber as well as Marx (if deemed a sociologist) and in part Durkheim;
consider Schumpeter’s view of the group as the ‘true unit of class and class theory’
(also Swedberg, 1991: 52). Notably, his theoretical sociological writings were
influenced by and ‘resemble the works of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in that
they further our understanding of the rise and nature of modern society’ (Dahms,
1995: 1).11
To take just one instance of Weberian sociological influences, Schumpeter
(1949a [1911]: 91) uses the term ‘typical entrepreneur’ in the proximate sense of
Weber’s ideal type of capitalist entrepreneurs. In particular, Schumpeterian heroic
or supernormal capitalist entrepreneurs appear as special cases of the Weberian
ideal type of charismatic leadership (Swedberg, 1991: 35). By the ideal-typical
concept of charismatic leadership, Weber ‘had anticipated [Schumpeter’s] appeal
to the supernormal [business] leader’ (MacDonald, 1965: 377–8). Since capitalist
entrepreneurship manifests itself as the expression of charismatic authority, this
admittedly suggests some pertinence and applications of Weber’s concept of
charisma in modern (Austrian) organizational economics (Langlois, 1998). Also,
what Schumpeter identifies as the ‘sociological reasons’ of business cycles, especially crises – recognizing the ‘fact the non-economic causes play a dominant role
in the present crisis’ (the 1929 Depression) – are particular forms of Weber’s
‘sociological relations in the economic sphere’ (1939: 499). Specifically, Weber
anticipates Schumpeter’s sociological reasons of depressions by observing (in
General Economic History) that historically the ‘social order itself may be held
responsible for the crises’ (1950 [1923]: 291).
Though more implicitly hostile (following Mises) to Comte–Durkheim’s
sociological holism than was Schumpeter, Hayek in most of his later works
presents and incorporates economic arguments within a broader semi-sociological
or social-philosophical, especially normative-institutional, framework (Caldwell,
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1997). This entails Hayek’s evolution from a narrowly focused, pure and technical
neoclassical economist to a broad institutionalist economist, a mature social
philosopher (and ideologue), or a pseudo- (half-hearted) sociologist. This intellectual evolution was in part prompted by sociological, especially Weberian
methodological and theoretical, influences. For illustration, Hayek’s (and Popper’s) method of situational analysis or the logic of the situation is an approach
whose ‘basic technique goes back at least to Max Weber’ (Langlois, 1986: 231),
that is to say, Verstehen or interpretive reasoning. Also, Hayek’s (1991: 368) and
modern Austrian economics’ concept of rule-governed (versus purposive) behavior, as the integrative factor of society, can be traced to what Weber earlier also
called rule-governed (or norm-following) conduct, including traditional action.
Moreover, in a sense, Hayekian rule-governed behavior is but a subtype of
Weber’s ideal type of value-rational action, for (or if) that behavior is, as Hayek
admits, shaped by shared values.
Among other Austrian economists, Machlup (1963), for instance, ‘out of
the Weberian tradition’ (Langlois, 1986: 231), adopted and advocated the use of
the method of ideal types in economic analysis. Generally, Weber’s theme that
economics is ‘too narrow a field and should include more ideas from [sociology]
and other social sciences [is] congenial to [modern Austrian economists]’ (Langlois, 1986: 3). In sum, most members of the Austrian school consider economics
a ‘branch of general sociology, as a universal science of social phenomena as such’
(Prendergast 1986: 3), which suggests their recognition of the unity of knowledge about society. These views on the relations between economic science and
sociology introduce the idea of economic sociology or sociological economics to
be discussed next.
The Idea of Economic Sociology
In retrospect, much of traditional theoretical sociology ‘has concerned the
relationship between economy and society’ (Fararo, 2001: 177). Hence the idea
of economic sociology, understood as a study of the interrelationship of economy
and society, including the role of the former in the latter (Swedberg, 2003: 6), is
as old as the discipline, and can be traced to early sociologists like Durkheim,
Weber and even Comte. In the latter, the idea of economic sociology is implied in
the concept of a social economy situated within and affected by society as a larger
and more complex entity. For Comte, the ‘various functions of the social economy
are naturally implicated in relations of greater generality’ (1983: 274), which, as
argued below, adumbrates or even formulates the societal embeddedness of
economic action. He rejects orthodox economics’ assumption that economy is a
self-contained entity dissociated from society, and argues that the latter is a whole
characterized by interconnections of its various, including economic and political,
elements, particularly the ‘constant action of the whole upon the parts’ (1983:
276). Comte suggests that an analysis (and regulation) of economy should take
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into consideration its social character and constitution ‘to keep up the idea of the
whole, and the feeling of common interconnection’ (1983: 275). This consideration constitutes a differentia specifica of economic sociology relative to standard
economics insofar as the latter views economic behavior (micro-economics) in
isolation from other social relations, and economy (macro-economics) as a selfcontained entity insulated from society. Classical economic sociologists treat
economic behavior as a particular form of social action (Weber) or of interaction
(Simmel), and economy as an integral element of the societal system (Durkheim,
Pareto), thus arguing for a ‘more general approach [than orthodox economics] to
human action’ (Fararo, 2001: 20).
The idea of economic sociology (or social economy) as an admittedly
‘profitable line of study’ (Boulding 1969: 8) has directly or indirectly influenced
many economists. Among early economists, Mill is particularly relevant by virtue
of adopting Comte’s sociological concept of a social economy implicated in
society. Thus, influenced by Comte (and Say12), Mill advances, as seen above, the
science of social economy as economics’ counterpart to Comtean sociology. In
particular, by its recognition that economy is a constituent of society, this science
is essentially isomorphic to Comte’s economic sociology (or sociological economics). Just as Comte and others distinguish between an economistic approach
and a societal perspective on economy (Smelser and Swedberg 1994: 8) or
economic sociology, so does Mill between economics (political economy proper)
and the science of social economy on the basis of their different domains and
approaches. Mill assigns to economics the task of analyzing humans only in terms
of the desire for wealth while abstracting from other desires, and to social
economy that of considering the plurality of motives in human behavior. As a
prominent classical economist, building on Mill, puts it, social economy recognizes that the ‘desires, passions and propensities which influence mankind in the
pursuit of wealth are almost infinite’ (Cairnes, 1965 [1875]: 56). If so, Mill’s
social economy is influenced by, or congruent with, classical economic sociology,
which assumes the complexity of motives in producer and consumer behavior,
including intrinsic motivations and/or ‘non-rational elements such as value
commitments and sentiments’ (Fararo, 2001: 20). This sociological assumption is
admittedly still relevant for contemporary economics, because:
. . . if all individuals were as selfish as economists have traditionally
modeled them, matters would indeed be bleak [yet] there is a wealth of
evidence that the economists’ traditional model of the individual is too
narrow – and that indeed intrinsic rewards, for example of public service,
can be even more effective than extrinsic rewards, e.g., monetary
compensation.
(Stiglitz 2002: 488)
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Influenced by Mill’s Comtean phase as well as by Spencer, it was perhaps
Jevons who first coined the term ‘economic sociology’ in 1879 (Swedberg, 2003:
5), to be subsequently adopted and redefined by many economists and sociologists. In doing so, he embraced Spencer’s conception of sociology as a science of
the evolution of social relations, which intimates the idea of economic sociology as
a study of the link of that evolution with economy. In Jevons’ words, economic
sociology would be a science of the evolution of economic relations within societal
evolution, and thus a ramification and application, within economics, of Spencerian
evolutionary sociology. Moreover, Jevons suggests, perhaps surprisingly given his
marginalism and mathematical method, that ‘it is only by subdivision, by recognising a branch of Economic Sociology [etcetera], that we can rescue [economic]
science from its confused state’ (1965 [1871]: 20–1). His attribution to economic
sociology of a sort of messianic mission sheds light on the heretical assertion by
his disciple Wicksteed about the ‘handmaid’ status of economics in relation to
sociology. This assertion recognizes the need for applying a sociological approach
to economy and thus for economic sociology, as an ‘interstitial’ discipline
(Boulding, 1957: 9), to complement and integrate pure (marginalist) economics
on the underlying (Comtean) epistemological premise of the unity of social
science. So does, as we have noted, Wicksteed’s use of Comte’s specification of the
relation of economics and sociology as the prelude to his major work.
The preceding can also be considered but a prelude to the idea of
economic sociology and its influence on economics. Max Weber, originally an
economist and economic-legal historian turned sociologist, is often credited with
the richest early formulation of economic sociology (Swedberg, 1998) or sociological economics (Swedberg, 1991), including the sociology of markets. As his
contemporaries, such as Schumpeter (1954: 21), observed, Weber was the ‘man
who did more than anyone’ to establish economic sociology as well as social
economics. (Weber understood the latter as an inclusive discipline that incorporated pure economics, economic history as well as economic sociology.13) On this
account, Weber is often considered the ‘most important figure in early economic
sociology’ (Swedberg, 2003: 30). His project of economic sociology/social
economics has influenced, alongside sociologists, a number of economists, especially the members of the Austrian school, such as Schumpeter and Wieser, Mises
(in part), Hayek and others (for example, Lachmann and Löwe14). Further, some
leading neoclassical economists (formally outside but linked to) the Austrian
school suggest that ‘anybody who takes social science seriously . . . should make
the acquaintance of Max Weber [as] the most powerful sociological mind of his
period’ (Robbins, 1998: 244–5).
Primarily influenced by Weber’s idea of economic sociology, Schumpeter
engages in various identifications, applications and redefinitions of the idea. For
instance, Schumpeter identifies the ‘economic sociology of Adam Smith’, which
anticipates or prompts the identification by some contemporary economists
(Reisman, 1987) of Smithian sociological economics. According to Schumpeter
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(1949a [1911]: 60), Smith’s economic sociology, defined as analysis of the ‘social
framework of the economic course of events’, embraces political and economic
liberties, individual rights, laws and legal security, social-technical division of
labor, societal control over the environment, historical roots and extra-economic
dimensions of such as property and contract. Typically, Schumpeter conceives the
discipline from an institutional or structural perspective, as a study of the impact
of social institutions and structures on individual economic behavior (also Swedberg, 1991: 253). Notably, his various definitions often have strong Weberian
connotations; consider the definition of economic sociology as the ‘description
and interpretation – or interpretative description – of economically relevant
institutions’ (Schumpeter, 1949b: 203–4). This definition has a double, conceptual and methodological, Weberian connotation. Schumpeter’s economically
relevant institutions, as the subject of economic sociology, are special cases of
Weberian ‘economically relevant phenomena’. His interpretive description, as the
method of economic sociology, is essentially the same as Weber’s interpretive
understanding or Verstehen. Further, he extends Weber’s method to economics
proper by defining the latter as the ‘interpretative description of the economic
mechanisms that play within any state of those institutions such as market
mechanisms’ (Schumpeter, 1949b: 204).15 So does, for that matter, Schumpeter’s
contemporary and Weber’s admirer, Frank Knight, who states that in the economy ‘behavior facts are most inseparably bound up with motivation and that
objective data call most imperatively for interpretation by subjective facts and
meanings’ (1944: 289), thus advocating Verstehen as a method for economics.
Following Weber, Schumpeter includes the discipline of economic sociology along
with economic theory, applied economics, economic history and statistics in
(social) economics.
Notably, Schumpeter proposes the sociology of enterprise as a specialty of
economic sociology in order to do justice to the social character of entrepreneurship and firms. He defines the sociology of enterprise as a study of the social
conditions that ‘produce and shape, favor or inhibit entrepreneurial activity’ and
even of the ‘structure and the very foundations of capitalist society’ (Schumpeter,
1951: 224–5). Influenced by or similar to Weber’s concept of economic behavior
and actors, he conceives entrepreneurship as a particular form of social action
rather than a purely market or rational activity, and enterprises as special organizations, not mere production functions. Relatedly, Schumpeter (1949a [1911]: xi)
examines economic development, driven by entrepreneurship, as a complex social
process to be understood within the framework of a ‘theory of cultural evolution’
and thus the unity of knowledge, rather than as an exclusively market activity. If
so, he would probably subscribe to the suggestion by John Bates Clark (1899:
187), an American marginal economist, that development and other economic
processes should be analyzed, and even economics divided, on the basis of
‘sociological evolution’ or ‘sociological laws’ of movement. Alternatively, the
Schumpeterian sociology of enterprise and development would be superfluous or
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irrelevant if entrepreneurship were a strictly market activity and firms mere input–
output functions, as would sociology of the market if markets were no more than
automatic economic mechanisms. That Schumpeter gives such importance to the
sociology of enterprise and the market, as elements of economic sociology,
suggests that he treats firms, markets and related phenomena not (only) as pure
mechanisms but (also) as complex social processes and structures or institutions.
The premise behind such a treatment is essentially sociological, especially
holistic or Durkhemian, as, in a manner resembling, if not influenced by (Swedberg, 1991), Durkheim’s holism, he observes that the ‘social process is really one
indivisible whole [and] out of its great stream the classifying hand of the
investigator artificially extracts economic facts’ (Schumpeter, 1949a [1911]: 1).
(Even if this quote is accompanied by references not to Durkheim but to a halfdozen other scholars, its spirit is eminently Durkhemian.) Further, Schumpeter’s
definition of economic sociology in institutional terms is congruent with or
anticipated by Durkheimian sociological institutionalism, though a clear influence
is more difficult to trace.16 Durkheim’s conception of sociology as the science of
‘genesis and evolution’ of social institutions and their effects on individuals
implies an analogous definition of its economic branch as a study of the impact of
these institutions on market actors. In addition, Durkheim’s sociological analyses
of economic phenomena like division of labor, market contracts, and so on,
influenced (Dunning, 1997) or had ‘some connections’ (Gislain and Steiner,
1999) with the (later) German historical school (for example, Schmoller) and
early American institutional economics (Commons), as did Tönnies’ (1955
[1887]) idea of Gemeinschaft or sense of community as a ‘fundamental concept of
institutional [historical] economics’ (Pirker and Rauchenschwandnter, 1998). A
detailed examination of this issue, however, would require another paper.
In sum, Durkheim and other classical sociologists like Comte, Weber,
Pareto, and Simmel by their work in economic sociology ‘contributed toward that
broadening of the outlook of economics, which is itself an implicit criticism of the
narrowness of “mainstream” ’ economic theory’ (Boulding, 1957: 5). Further,
prominent contemporary economists suggest that ‘in a seminar designed to
acquaint students with the hinterlands, underworlds and far-flung territories of
economics, these [sociologists] could hardly be neglected’ (Boulding, 1957: 5).
This suggestion is an intriguing and pertinent admission of the usually neglected
(by economists and sociologists alike) impact of classical sociological theory on
early, even contemporary, economics. This impact is further documented in the
following section by invoking the conception of ‘the social embeddedness of the
economy’ (Granovetter, 1985), which, as a key paradigm of (new) economic
sociology, has origins or anticipations in classical sociological theory and influenced areas of economics directly (for example, Polanyi) or indirectly (modern
institutional economists like Williamson), as elaborated next.
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The Social Embeddedness Conception
The conception of the social character, constitution and structuring, or simply
embeddedness, of the economy is a major proposition of economic sociology that
influences contemporary economics, especially its institutionalist formulations
(Hodgson, 1998; Williamson, 2000). Some leading institutionalist economists,
distinguishing four levels of economic analysis, consider social embeddedness
‘Level 1’, at which societal ‘norms, customs, mores, traditions, etc.’, are situated
(Williamson, 2000: 596); incidentally, an appropriation with apparent (yet often
unrecognized) Durkheimian normative-institutional connotations. The concept
of social embeddedness, both in its micro and macro forms – that is ‘ongoing
network relations’ and ‘level of society’–is adopted as helpful in explicating informal constraints on economic behavior, so the institutions of social embeddedness
become an important (though underdeveloped) part of institutional economics
(Williamson, 2000: 610). Thus understood, social embeddedness becomes what is
called a ‘background condition’ in the new institutional economics (Williamson,
1998). In particular, some economists define network relations by adopting definitions of social/economic networks ‘used in the sociological literature’ (Rauch,
2001: 1179) on embeddedness. The overall impact of the embeddedness conception on contemporary economics is expressed in the suggested ‘importance of
embedding economic analysis in a broader social and political context’ (Stiglitz,
2002: 486).17 Prominent contemporary economists recognize that the economy
(including the market) is implicated in and implicates the ‘total society’ (Boulding,
1970: 153) and thus is a particular element of the social system (Arrow 1994: 6).
The direct or recognized pathway of influence goes notably from the new
economic sociology’s conception of social embeddedness (Granovetter) to the
new institutional economics (Williamson, in part North) and even parts of
mainstream economics (such as Arrow). In turn, the new economic sociology’s
(specifically Granovetter’s) formulation of social embeddedness, as is known,
expanded on or was congruent with Polanyi’s earlier economic-anthropological
rendition. Perhaps less known or recognized is that Polanyi’s rendition built on
some formulations or intimations of social embeddedness in classical sociological
theory, such as Durkheim’s institutionalism and Weber’s concepts of formal and
substantive rationality, as elaborated below. If this reconstruction is correct, then
classical sociological theory, in virtue of its social embeddedness formulation or
intimation, influenced the new institutional (and other) economics, though via an
indirect or unrecognized path. This somewhat serendipitous ‘discovery’ of a
trajectory from classical sociological theory to modern institutional economics is
the crucial finding or argument of this section. The full circle of influence in terms
of the social embeddedness conception is illustrated as follows: classical sociological theory’s (pre)formulation (Durkheim, Weber) → anthropological rendition (Polanyi) → new economic sociology’s reformulation (Granovetter) → new
institutional economics’ adoption as ‘Level 1’ or ‘background condition’
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(Williamson). If so, then the burden of this section is to identify elements or
anticipations of the conception of social embeddedness in classical sociological
theory and to show its influence on its subsequent reformulations, especially that
by Polanyi et al.
While prominent in contemporary anthropology and attaining a paradigmatic privilege in the new economic sociology, the concept of social embeddedness perhaps originates or is anticipated in Durkheim, Weber and other classical
sociologists like Comte, Pareto, and Marx.18 In essence, the concept is present or
latent, though the term was not used in classical sociological theory. For instance,
Comte’s view that social economy is ‘naturally implicated in relations of greater
generality’ – that is, embedded in society – is perhaps a prototypical (though
overly abstract) statement or anticipation of embeddedness. Generally, some idea
or intimation of embeddedness is implicit in classical sociological theory’s argument about the social logic, constitution and (as Weber put it) co-determination
of economic behavior (micro level) and economy (macro level). At the microsociological level, economic behavior is implicated or entangled in a web of
relations, and constitutes a special mode of social action (for example, Weber’s
instrumental-rational type). At the macro level, economy exists and operates
within institutional structure and culture, thus being embedded in society; in
Durkheim–Pareto’s terms, economic systems are the particular units of social
systems as more complex. Thus the classical idea or implication of embeddedness
converts economy into (to use Parsons–Luhmann’s terminology) a differentiated
subsystem of society, as the total and only self-subsistent as well the largest selfreferential social system. Since this idea posits that economy is embedded in social
relations and structural conditions, its influence is manifested in that some
economists recognize the presence and salience of both micro and macro extraeconomic variables, namely network of ties and institutional-cultural arrangements. For instance, Weber is influential or appreciated among Austrians and
other neoclassical economists (for example, Knight,19 Robbins) for seeing economic behavior as existing within and influenced by the ‘[micro-]structure of
social action’ and macro-conditions like state rules and institutions, impersonal
power constellations,20 cultural (religious) values, and so forth. So was Durkheim
among many French (and other) economists (such as Simiand), while his idea of
embeddedness is mostly macroscopic or institutional-normative. A case in point of
such influences is Polanyi – an economist turned anthropologist-sociologist seen
as the ‘father’ of the (modern) embeddedness conception (Barber, 1995; Swedberg, 2003) – who was influenced by classical sociological theory, especially
Durkheim’s institutionalism and Weber’s notion of substantive rationality, as
shown below.
An objection may be made that a long tradition of institutionalist thinking
(particularly in law) predates these authors, including Durkheim and Weber, that
these sources support economic sociology generally rather than embeddedness,
and that this involves retrojecting a contemporary preoccupation. Still, one can
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argue that classical sociologists like Durkheim anticipated and even ‘demonstrated
the social embeddedness of economic action’ (Tiryakian, 2000: 74), though his
formulation is more institutional-normative than that in the new economic
sociology. Notably, he did so by demonstrating the ‘institutional framework of
property, especially the pre-existing normative dimension of economic contracts
which is not set up by the individual parties’ (Tiryakian, 2000: 74). Further, some
economists (for example, Piore, 1996) consider Durkheim the father of economic
sociology in virtue of this demonstration. For illustration, the idea of socialinstitutional embeddedness is implied in Durkheim’s observation that it is the
‘totality of rules which actually determines [economic] conduct’, with market
values being described as ‘nothing than systems of values and hence ideals’ (1966
[1895]: 26–7). Notably, the modern embeddedness conception adopts this
Durkheimian description by characterizing monetary value as ‘an example of a
collective representation (as well as a social construct of meaning in Weber’s
sense)’ (Granovetter and Swedberg, 1992: 8). It is well known that Durkheim
shows the existence and salience of non-contractual or extra-economic social
elements in commercial contracts or market transactions. Such elements are
manifested in that if an economic contract, as Durkheim (1965 [1893]: 215) puts
it, has a binding force, this derives from society, because such contracts are not
self-sufficient, but only possible due to an ‘essentially social regulation’. At least,
for Durkheim the social nature and organization of the economy are expressed in
the fact that society ‘is far from having no hand in this sphere’. And he suggests
that, in virtue of being a ‘social science, whose subject matter is social phenomena
in their own right joined by bonds of interdependence’, economics take into
account this embeddedness of economy in society.
Anticipations or elements of social embeddedness are also present in
Weber, as his project of economic sociology rests on the premise that economy
operates in and is affected by society. For instance, he states that the economy is
‘influenced by the autonomous structure of social action within which it exists’
(1968 [1921]: 341). Another element or anticipation of embeddedness is implicit
in Weber’s concept of the substantive rationality of economic behavior, defined in
terms of seeking ‘ultimate values’. This holds true since (or if) seeking ultimate
ends or transcendent values is immersed in or influenced by the ‘structure of social
action’. It holds true also since (or if) Weber’s substantive rationality is essentially
equivalent to his value-rational social action, as suggested by his alternative
expression ‘value rationality’ in reference to ‘certain criteria of ultimate ends’
(1968 [1921]: 85), for substantive economic rationality-cum-pursuit of ‘ultimate
values’ is implicated in and affected by the ‘structure of [value-rational] action’. If
this interpretation is correct, then in the conception of substantive rationality and
thus embeddedness – just as in the social construction of economic actions –
‘Weber’s thought comes close to Durkheim’s’ (Granovetter and Swedberg, 1992:
8). Though this conception is more explicit in Weber, one can speak of the
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Durkheimian ‘substantive aspect’ of rationality (Fararo, 1989: 223), as distinguished from its formal facet (calculation), only dealt with by economics (as
Durkheim objects in his Division of Labor in Society), and as coupled to the idea of
institutional-social embeddedness.
Further, Durkheim–Weber’s demonstrations or adumbrations of social
embeddedness have influenced Polanyi’s own influential economic-anthropological rendition of the concept; and this is a moment often overlooked or
unrecognized. Specifically, this rendition essentially builds on Durkheim’s institutional-normative version of social embeddedness combined with Weber’s concept
of substantive rationality or value-rational action. For illustration, Polanyi’s
conception of social embeddedness is epitomized by his observation that economic behavior is ‘embedded and enmeshed in a variety of institutions’ (1968:
215). Consequently, he emphasizes the ‘institutional aspect’ of the economy and
describes the latter as an ‘instituted process’. Prima facie, these observations are
essentially variations or elaborations on Durkheim’s sociological institutionalism,
such as his insights into the ‘institutional framework’ of economic phenomena
(contract, property, markets, money and values). Polanyi indirectly recognizes
sociological influences, noting that sociology (and other social science) ‘was faced
with a great variety of institutions other than markets, in which man’s livelihood
was embedded’ (1968: 224). Relatedly, he advances substantive (as versus formal)
economic theory/anthropology on the basis of Weber’s dichotomy between the
two rationality types as well as Durkheim’s sociological institutionalism. Consistent with our interpretation, Polanyi’s substantive economics, based on or
congruent with Weber–Durkheim’s ‘substantive aspect’ of rationality, is predicated on the master idea of social embeddedness versus its formal ‘disembedded’
variant. This suggests that Polanyi constructed his embeddedness conception
either directly on the foundations of Durkheim’s sociological institutionalism or
indirectly via the Weberian–Durkheimian idea of substantive rationality – or most
likely both. In short, Polanyi ‘coined the term “embeddedness” ’ (Swedberg,
2003: 30), but the concept was present or implicit in Durkheim and Weber.
The rest of the story is well known: Polanyi’s rendition was to become the
stepping-stone for the new economic sociology’s conception of social embeddedness then adopted as a level of analysis or background condition in the new
institutional economics. A less known or recognized part of the story is that
classical sociological theory has exerted direct and pertinent influence on Polanyi’s
rendition, and thus ultimately on the new institutional economics via the new
economic sociology. The preceding intimates that Polanyi’s incorporation of
Durkheim’s sociological institutionalism and Weber’s substantive rationality (or
value-rational action) into substantive economic theory was Act 1 of or prelude to
the new institutional economics’ embrace of social embeddedness from the new
economic sociology. To that extent, classical sociological theory’s demonstration
of social embeddedness influenced modern institutional economics, albeit in
roundabout and latent ways.
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However, this indirect and latent influence is a conservative estimate or
minimalist reconstruction, for (or if) there are some ‘symptoms’ of direct and
manifest impact too. As hinted, one of these is the apparent, though rarely
acknowledged, Durkheimian normative connotation of the new institutional
economics’ appropriation or interpretation of embeddedness. We should consider
the latter’s adoption of social embeddedness as the economy’s background
condition involving ‘norms, customs, mores, traditions, etc. [religion]’ (Williamson, 2000: 596) vis-a-vis Durkheim’s argument that economic behavior is conditioned by the ‘totality of rules’ as well as Weber’s concepts of value-rational and
traditional action, substantive rationality, and the elective affinity between Protestantism and capitalism. Such examples suggest that the impact of the classical
sociological, especially Durkheim–Weber’s normative-substantive, demonstration
of social embeddedness on neo-institutionalism in economics may be more than
just indirect or latent, though most contemporary (unlike older) economists seem
reluctant to acknowledge extraneous influences from sociology. The influence of
classical sociological theory on economics was probably even more manifest and
direct in the case of statics and dynamics.
Social Statics and Dynamics
Statics and dynamics are among the most widely known concepts in economics.
What is perhaps less known is that these concepts originated in classical sociological theory and then transmitted to economics. Comte invented, distinguished
and systematically used the concepts of social statics and social dynamics, seen as
two main branches of sociology, the first dealing with societal order or spontaneous equilibrium, the second with society’s progress or development. In his view,
this division is between ‘two aspects of a theory’ rather than ‘two classes of facts’
(1983: 222), and relates to the double conception of order and progress, with
existing conditions and the laws of movement respectively constituting statics and
dynamics in sociology.
It is notable that for Comte social statics and dynamics incorporate
economic statics and dynamics as their particular forms, not vice versa, as is often
assumed in economics. Thus, while the static study of sociology involves the
‘investigation of the laws of action and reaction of different parts of the social
system’, by implication economic statics is a part of this study that investigates the
‘laws of action and reaction of different parts of the economic system’ (Comte,
1983: 224). Comte’s ontological rationale for this epistemological relation is that
the economic system is a particular constituent or subsystem of the social or (in
Pareto’s words) sociological system – that is, economic statics is an aspect of social
statics because economy is involved in society (Boulding, 1970: 153–5). The same
holds of the relations between social and economic dynamics. The latter is that
part of the former that focuses on the links between successive economic
conditions given that, as Comte put it, the scientific spirit of social dynamics
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consists in linking ‘consecutive social states as the necessary result of the preceding, and the indispensable mover of the following’ (1983: 230). In sum, by
studying laws of coexistence and of succession in society, social statics and
dynamics incorporate economic statics and dynamics that examine the operation
of such laws within the economy.
Subsequently, Comte’s social statics and dynamics have been adopted in
sociology as well as economics. In sociology, Spencer closely follows Comte by
defining social statics as a study of societal equilibrium, and social dynamics as one
of the progress or evolution of society. Spencer suggests that sociology ‘may be
aptly divided (as political economy has been) into statics and dynamics; the first
treating of the equilibrium of a perfect society, the second of the forces by which
society is advanced towards perfection’ (1970 [1850]: 367). (Oddly, Spencer fails
to notice that Comte had already divided sociology into social statics and
dynamics before Mill did the same in economics.) In short, Spencer’s social statics
focuses on the conditions necessary to individual happiness, and his social
dynamics on those essential to human perfection.
More importantly, in economics a major classical economist such as Mill
borrowed Comte’s social statics and dynamics and introduced them to classical
political economy, as referred to by Spencer to and as admitted/lamented by some
economists. For instance, Hayek laments that ‘it is questionable whether the
introduction of the terms statics and dynamic into economics (by John Stuart Mill
following Comte’s similar division in sociology) was beneficial’ (1950: 17). Mill
(in his 1848 Principles of Political Economy) defines economic statics as the
‘collective view of the economical phenomena of society, considered as existing
simultaneously’, that is, the ‘economical laws of a stationary and unchanging
society’, or simply a ‘theory of equilibrium’ (1884 [1848]: 474). Apparently, this
definition adopts and applies to the economy Comte’s idea of social statics, as an
inquiry into the laws of coexistence and equilibrium in society. Similarly, in Book
4 of Principles (‘Influence of the Progress of Society on Production and Distribution’), Mill embraces Comtean social dynamics, as a study of the laws of societal
movement, and transplants them into economic life by defining the ‘Dynamics of
political economy’ as the ‘theory of motion’ (1884 [1848]: 275).
Within neoclassical or marginal economics, John Bates Clark, in particular,
adopts and applies Comte’s concepts of statics and dynamics to the economy. In
Clark’s (1899: 193–4) rendition, economic statics assumes certain generic conditions of a stationary economy: for example, population, capital, production
methods, industrial organization and consumers’ preferences are all assumed
constant. By contrast, Clark’s economic dynamics introduces corresponding
‘generic changes’ in the economy: that is, population growth, capital accumulation, technical progress in production methods, shifts in industrial organization,
and variations in consumers’ preferences. Notably, Clark’s (1899: 192) concept of
‘Social Economic Dynamics’ blends Comtean and Millian ideas. Clark (1899:
187) acknowledges what Comte argues and emphasizes, namely that economic
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growth is essentially a particular case of ‘sociological evolution’. Finally, Clark
states, à la Comte, that ‘everything [dynamic] that is keeping society out of
[static] condition is natural, in a broad sense, since it is in harmony with
sociological laws [of movement]’ (1956 [1899]: 188). This statement echoes
Comte’s earlier contention that:
. . . dynamic considerations of sociology must prevail [for] the dynamic
view is not only the more interesting of the two, but the more marked in
its philosophical character, from its being more distinguished from biology
by the master thought of continuous progress, or rather, the gradual
development of humanity [as a case of] sociological laws.
(1983: 227)
In another influential neoclassical formulation, Knight defines and distinguishes
between economic statics and dynamics by mostly elaborating on Clark and,
indirectly, Comte. Notably, to illustrate this indirect sociological influence, Knight
defines economic statics in terms of ‘social economic organization’, and economic
dynamics in those of ‘social economic progress’ (1964 [1921]: 12). Prima facie,
these definitions are virtually identical to Comte’s defining of social statics and
dynamics in terms of order and progress, respectively.
The statics–dynamics dichotomy is perhaps the best known case of economics’ conceptual borrowing from sociology. This applies in part to the subsequent extensions of these concepts such as comparative statics and dynamics
within contemporary economics. By way of an illustration, Samuelson sees
comparative statics as a fruitful method consisting of an ‘investigation of changes
in a system from one position of equilibrium to another without regard to the
transitional process involved in the adjustment’ (1983: 7). In turn, comparative
dynamics ‘determines the behavior through time of all variables from arbitrary
initial conditions’ (1983: 257–60). Further, Samuelson describes comparative
dynamics, of which comparative statics is deemed a special case, as encompassing
a ‘much richer terrain’ (1983: 352). While probably influenced by John B. Clark,
this description (unwittingly) echoes Comte’s view of social dynamics as ‘more
interesting’ (1983: 229). En passant, Comte’s social statics/dynamics is by
assumption comparative, as he views a ‘comparison of the different coexisting
states of human society’ (1983: 248) as the chief method of sociology; the same
applies to Durkheim’s.
As I have already hinted, the invention and application of comparative
social statics and dynamics are associated with the concept of societal or system
equilibrium (and, by implication, dis-equilibrium). Comte implicitly defines social
statics by this concept, by reference to society’s spontaneous equilibrium, as does
Spencer explicitly. For illustration, Comte uses the concept in describing the
relations between individual and social well-being, stating that ‘equilibrium always
establishes itself spontaneously to a certain extent’ (1983: 233). Further, his
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contention that the happiness of the individual hinges on the ‘harmony between
the development of his faculties and the entire system of circumstances that
govern his life’, which makes it impossible to compare the ‘individual welfare that
belongs to social situations that can never be brought into direct comparison’
(1983: 233–4), almost adumbrates what neoclassical economists call general or
aggregate economic equilibrium, the Pareto-optimum, and so on. Also, Comte’s
equation of societal order, the subject of statics, with a ‘permanent harmony
among the conditions of social existence’ hints at system equilibrium, an implication Durkheim developed more fully later. More important, it pre-figures, if not
influenced the notion of ‘economic harmonies’ posited by Bastiat, an early French
economist and follower of Smith. (To be sure, early sociologists like Comte,
Spencer and Durkheim were not the first to use the concept of equilibrium in
social science, as Smith, Ricardo and other classical economists had used it before.
In turn, Comte and others, probably, judging from their initial training and
influence, adopted the concept from physics and/or biology rather than
economics.)
Alternatively, social dynamics implies the concept of dis-equilibrium insofar as one assumes societal integration and harmony, or system equilibrium, and
treats movements from or changes to it as disturbances and so dis-equilibrating.
To that extent, social-system equilibrium is eo ipso societal optimum, and vice
versa. In classical sociology, Durkheim adopts the concept of social equilibrium
qua optimum, though (unlike Pareto and other neoclassical economists) he
conceives the latter in non-economic, especially moral, terms. Thus understood,
the Durkheimian moral concept of social equilibrium logically incorporates as its
special case, though does not predate, Walras–Pareto’s notion of general market
equilibrium as economic optimum and its disturbance as sub-optimal. If this
interpretation seems not so logical, recall Mill–Keynes’ dictum about economics
as a branch of ‘moral science’.
Historically, the sociological roots and underpinning of statics and dynamics have been blurred or forgotten in mainstream economics. Most economists (including equilibrium theorists) think that these concepts are the venerable
legacy of economics – or introduced therein from physics, mechanics or biology
(Mirowski, 1989)–thus neglecting or dismissing their original trajectory from
early sociological theory to classical political economy. The aforesaid indicates that
this neglect is unjustified.
Conclusion
The preceding analysis has provided certain relevant instances and themes of the
influence of sociological theory on economic analysis, with an emphasis on their
early periods. To uncover and document sociology’s virtually unsuspected or
glossed over (even by contemporary sociologists) influence on economics has
been the focus and the manifest objective of this undertaking. The focus on the
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theoretical impact of sociology on economics has reversed that prevailing in the
current literature. The latter usually centers on influences in the direction from
economics to sociology (Baron and Hannan, 1994) and other social sciences
(especially political science) and, alternatively, neglects those with the opposite
pathway in the perception that sociological theory has had relatively ‘little impact’
on its economic counterpart (Kalleberg, 1995). To most economists, the rationale
for such (over-)emphasis on the impact of their discipline on sociology is the selfproclaimed status of economics as the ‘queen’ of the social sciences. Many
sociologists and other non-economists (particularly political scientists) subscribe
to economists’ imperial ambitions for ‘colonization’ of social science by importing
and applying economic theories to their disciplines. In sociology, this process has
led to sociological rational choice (including partly social exchange) theory, in
political science, to public choice theory, in legal science, to law and economics, in
anthropology, to formal economic anthropology, and so forth. As an exemplar,
Coleman’s rational choice sociology ‘is based on a generalization of general
economic equilibrium theory’ (Fararo, 2001: 272).21 The aforesaid arguments
indicate that the exclusive focus on the impact of economics on theory and
research in sociology while neglecting the inverse influence tells us just part of the
story, and is thus one-dimensional and incomplete. At worst it reflects economists’
academic imperialism and sociologists’ ‘seduction’.
This undertaking, however, has tried not just to accomplish a history of
social ideas, but also to situate the impact of sociology on economics within an
analytical framework or master narrative. This framework has been the epistemological issue of the unity of knowledge, especially social science, in the sense of
Comte (and Aristotle). Placing sociological influences on economics within an
epistemological framework of the unity of social science has given an additional,
latent objective and justification to this undertaking. The preceding has attempted
to infer or impute (the idea and search of) the unity of social science from an
exploration and illustration of the impact of sociological theory on economics.
This impact suggests the inference or imputation that knowledge about society,
like the latter itself, is an indivisible whole or seen as such by those dramatis
personae (for example, Comte, Mill, Weber and Schumpeter) involved in this
‘secret affair’ between sociology and economics. In particular, it leads to inferring
or intimating the unity of social theory, and thus the resulting status of economic
theorizing as its subtype, contrary to the opposite premise of imperialist economics. Hence, a main conclusion of this exercise is that the theoretical impact of
sociology on economics has been (or can be) linked with the epistemological
problem of the unity of knowledge, especially the (Comtean) project for unification of social science and theory. In that unification, economics is seen as a special
branch of sociology as unified science, and economic theorizing a subspecialty of
social or sociological theory.
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Notes
1.
The impact of sociology on economics is also manifested in the partial or complete, latent or
manifest, conversion of many important economists into (un)official sociologists – for example,
Mill, Pareto, Wieser, Weber, Sombart, Ross, Giddings, Schumpeter, Wiese, Parsons, Polanyi,
etcetera – mostly as the result of their recognition of the insufficiency or deficiency of economics.
In retrospect, the ‘bitter argument between the economists and human beings had ended in the
conversion of the economists [into sociologists]’ (Bladen, 1941: 29). In turn, virtually no cases are
known of important sociologists becoming economists. Still, Schumpeter (1956: 301) implies that
an exception may be Wieser, insofar as his first and last interest was in historical sociology. If so,
then Wieser’s career has come full circle: from a sociologist to an economist and then to a
sociologist again.
2.
One of these early economists influenced by Comte is a Scottish economist, John Rae, who in a
volume entitled Sociological Theory of Capital examines the sociological (and psychological)
determinants of economic inter-temporal choices (Frederick et al., 2002: 351).
3.
Heilbron (1990) argues that Comte’s conception of science has not lost its relevance for
contemporary epistemology and sociological theory.
4.
The English translation would be: ‘Economic analysis proper ultimately must not be conceived nor
cultivated, whether theoretically or empirically, apart from the whole of sociological analysis, be it
static or dynamic.’
5
John Maynard Keynes added the adjective ‘most agreeable’ to Mill–Marshall’s (and his father’s)
description of economics as a branch of moral/social science.
6.
Stiglitz complains that the perfectly competitive model
. . . virtually made economics a branch of engineering . . . and the participants in the
economy better or worse engineers. Each was solving a maximization problem, with full
information: households maximizing utility subject to budget constraints, firms maximizing profits (market value), and the two interacting in competitive product, labor, and
capital markets.
(2002: 466)
7.
For instance, Spencer’s view that differentiation or variation is the outcome rather than the cause
of evolution, as Darwin’s theory assumes, influenced Marshall (Khalil, 1999).
8.
Schumpeter observes that, unlike Wieser and in part Menger, Böhm-Bawerk advances ‘an analysis
of the general forms of the socio-economic process [in which] the sociological framework is only
hinted at’ (1956: 150).
9.
In substantive terms, Weber’s direct or indirect influence is inter alia apparent in Mises’ treatment
of property as a ‘sociological category’ (1950: 37).
10.
Haberler suggests that Schumpeter ‘was superior because Keynes was not a sociologist, and Max
Weber was a sociologist and an economic historian, but not an economic theorist’ (1994: xiv).
Alternatively, this implies that Schumpeter would be ‘superior’ because he was both an economist
and a sociologist.
11.
Dahms argues that Schumpeter’s perspective
. . . provides a promising starting point for the sociological analysis of the changing
relationship between economy and society [for example] the distinction between
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creative action and rational action that is fundamental to his theory of the entrepreneur,
and his thesis that the success of the capitalist system leads to its demise.
(1995: 1)
12.
Jean Baptiste Say, another early French economist, emphasizes that one always deals with the
economy of societies, suggesting that a more appropriate name for economic science is social
rather than political economy.
13.
According to Granovetter and Swedberg, ‘Weber’s ideas were ultimately closer to those of Comte
and the Historical School than to those of the other side [orthodox and Austrian economics]’
(1992: 4).
14.
Löwe’s science of political economics and Lachlan’s economic sociology are largely elaborations of
Weber’s sociological perspective on the economy. Löwe (1965: 18) make suggestions for ‘going
back to Weber’ in analyzing the economy and its relations to society. Similarly, Lachmann (1992)
proposes to analyze some themes of economic sociology ‘from a Weberian Perspective.’
15.
Economic sociologists and institutionalist economists may question Schumpeter’s treatment of
markets (and firms) as economic mechanisms endowed with their inner logic. (Also, he alternatively describes the market as the most democratic institution.) Economic sociologists typically
views markets as social institutions and structures, including power and status orders, rather than
automatic economic mechanisms. So do some contemporary economists (e.g. Arrow, 1994) by
treating markets as social institutions. In addition, many new institutionalist economists (for
example, Williamson, 1998) have misgivings about viewing economic organizations as mechanisms, arguing that firms are not simply technical constructions (production functions) but
governance structures or social institutions.
16.
One may comment that Durkheim’s influence on Schumpeter might better be rephrased as
‘Parsons’ impact on Schumpeter’s reading schedule’. Swedberg (1991) claims and documents
such Durkheimian influences, especially in Schumpeter’s theory of social classes.
17.
In a Schumpeterian vein, Stiglitz observes that development represents a ‘far more fundamental
transformation of society [than simply economic growth], including a change in “preferences”
and attitudes, an acceptance of change, and an abandonment of many traditional ways of
thinking’, inferring that ‘history matters’ (2002: 486–7). Also, he allows that sociological factors
(including morale or a sense of fairness in earning) can affect work efforts, thus providing an
alternative persuasive ground for efficiency wage theory. More consistently and explicitly, Akerlof
(2002) adopts such ‘sociological explanations for efficiency wages’. These recent pronouncements
resemble Myrdal’s (1953: 100) suggestion that economics requires as its foundation a sociologicalpsychological explanation of the causes of supply, demand and prices.
18.
In this paper, I treat Marx as a classical economist, who was in turn influenced by some early
sociologists (for example, Saint Simon), rather than a sociologist in the strict sense à la Comte,
Durkheim or Weber. As is known, Pareto and Schumpeter as well as Weber implicitly distinguish
Marx the economist from Marx the sociologist, though he hardly ever used the term ‘sociology’. In
turn, the influence of Marx qua an undeclared sociologist on (heterodox) economic theory has
been pervasive and can be the subject of a separate paper. For illustration, influenced by Marx,
Lange states that the ‘existence of a class of labourers working for wages and salaries endows
capitalism with specific sociological features. Capitalism as a form of economic organization is
therefore a subject of study of economic sociology as well as economics’ (1945–6: 28). Overall,
Lange acknowledges that the ‘administration of scarce resources is influenced by social organization and institutions’ (1945–6: 20), which would provide the rationale and domain for economic
sociology.
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19.
Perhaps more than any leading neoclassical economist outside the Austrian school, Knight
displayed interest in and appreciation of Weber’s works. It was not accidental that Knight should
be the first to translate and introduce to the English-speaking public a work of Weber, that is
General Economic History (in 1927). Further, Knight reportedly said that ‘there has been the work
of one man whom I have greatly admired. If I were to start again, I would build upon his ideas. I
am referring, of course, to Max Weber’ (quoted in Schweitzer, 1975: 279). Finally, Knight
reportedly held a seminar with an exclusive focus on Weber’s work at the University of Chicago
during the 1930s. (Alexander von Shelting did the same at Columbia University during that
period.)
20.
Though not explicitly acknowledging Weber’s influence, institutionalist economists like Coase and
Williamson recognize the role of power in the structure and operation of economic organizations
described as authority centers or hierarchies and governance structures, thus resembling Weberian
power constellations. Still, for most economists and rational choice theorists, the ‘power concept
is a generalization of the wealth concept in economic theory’ (Fararo, 2001: 266).
21.
Fararo adds that Coleman’s project ‘misses the opportunities to articulate the sociological rational
choice strategy to the tradition of general theoretical sociology’ (2001: 274–5). Methodologically,
‘Coleman tries to work with the mathematical apparatus of economic theory in terms of its
optimization techniques’ (Fararo, 2001: 295)
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Milan Zafirovski is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas, Denton. His research
themes are multi-disciplinary and center on the relations between economics and sociology, economic
sociology, stratification and social theory. His recent publications include three books, Exchange, Action
and Social Structure: Elements of Economic Sociology (Greenwood Press, 2001), A Primer on Economic
Sociology: The Duality of Structure in Markets (NOVA Science Publishers, 2002) and Market and Society:
Two Theoretical Frameworks (Praeger, 2003), as well as a number of journal articles, including one
previously published in Journal of Classical Sociology 1(2) (‘Parsons and Sorokin: A Comparison of the
Founding of American Sociological Theory Schools’, pp. 227–56).
Address: Department of Sociology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA. [email:
[email protected]]
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