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March 10, 2008
Economic sociology is the application of the sociological perspective to economic phenomena as well as to phenomena which are economically relevant and economically conditioned. If we think Max Weber or Pierre Bourdieu, then a historical perspective is introduced. So Karl Marx and and Georg Simmel would undoubtedly belong to the internationally recognized canon in economic sociology. Is economic sociology a recognisable subfield in Australian social science as distinct from Marxist political economy? Has the former filled the void left by the demise of the latter?
In this text Johan Heilbron says that In a general article on the ‘economic field’ (Bourdieu 1997), Bourdieu proposes a systematic outline of his view.
What he calls the economic filed is the product of a process of historical differentiation which has allowed the economy to function according to specific laws (‘business is business’). This particular social world is, first of all, seen as a field of forces between actors. The relations between these actors, usually firms, are based on the volume and the composition of their capital. The concept of a field is thus distinguished from the interactionist view which characterises both game theory and network analysis. The economic field is, secondly, defined as a field of struggle, as an opposition mainly between established powers and their challengers. Here Bourdieu treats a series of questions about the conditions and strategies of change (and in particular the role of technological capital). The competing actors or agents are no homogeneous units: firms and other institutions are themselves fields, consisting of competing groups. In order to avoid a mechanistic image of the field dynamics, Bourdieu thus differentiates his analysis further and in the last part of his paper introduces the notion of ‘economic habitus’ to replace what he considers to be a scholastic notion: homo economicus. As a ‘socialised subjectivity’ the habitus informs the ways in which economic and other interests are actually perceived and pursued.
So economic sociology explores the limits of economic explanations and attempts to find sociologically informed answers to stated problem--- eg., around technological change or the impact of globalisation on the Australian economy---and re-establishes the links between economy and society in opposition to the neo-liberal reduction of society to the economy.
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Gary,
It basically studies systems of exchange, the monetary economy being one. We can also speak of trust economies or gift economies.