Sociology and Economics

[Bank_Run]

That is true Krazy Kaju. It is simply a statement. It is generally the impression of sociology I have received from schools.

I was trying to mainly express that Praxeology, and Sociology are different methods.

I used the above sections of chapters, to express how did we get this science of sociology, what are it’s origins? How was this motivated, and what would Mises think of these things?

Well a couple of folks are blamed for this. First Max Weber, second Auguste Compte Though in the origins of philosophy we can see many thinkers talking about a ‘social order’. My impression is that Weber, and Compte, wanted to unify this thought into a wider field. What are your impressions?

Catallactics, n. catallactic, adj. The theory of the market economy, i.e., of exchange ratios and prices. It analyzes all actions based on monetary calculation and traces the formation of prices back to the point where acting man makes his choices. It explains market prices as they are and not as they should be. The laws of catallactics are not value judgments, but are exact, objective and of universal validity.

I hope you can see that sociology was and is motivated by levellers. Praxeology offers a more rational alternative.

Oh; Hi and thanks Nitro. The meme thing looks like a utilitarian argument. And the other guy is quite metaphysical, he is too polylogistic for my taste. I like the poetry though.

And now for a irelevent quote by Jimi Hendrix. “When the power of love, overtakes the love for power, the world may finally know peace”.

[Stephen_Forde]

So how are sociology and economics different? What is the scope of economics and what is the scope of sociology?

[corpus_delicti]

Your question can really be answered on multiple levels. It all depends what you mean when you say ‘sociology’ and ‘economics’. Since you are contemplating majoring in sociology, I will, in this reply, consider both terms in the more mainstream scope. As much as I love Ludwig von Mises work on methodology and, by extension, praxeology, everyone on this site needs to face the fact that the mainstream does not know his works - at all! (However unfortunate that might be.)

With that said I really need to give you a disclaimer before proceeding. First of all I am not studying sociology; my sister is (I’m studying industrial engineering if that has any relevancy). Additionally I am danish; thus I cannot account for any discrepancies between how the study of sociology is structured in the US versus Denmark.

My shortest answer must be that sociology and economics has nothing to do with each other. I base this on the fact that both fields are almost entirely positivistic, thus neither seeing a methodological link. Having used about a year reading literature on this site and read some of my sister’s literature I have come to the conclusion that some of the best things that could happen to both fields where if most economists would read some of the classics in sociology and most sociologists read some of the classics in economics. Obviously the best thing would be if both read up on e.g. Mises, Hoppe, Menger, Hayek etc.

Just to give you an example: Ask any sociology student about Émile Durkheim and you will probably get a reply about ‘social facts’ and ‘suicide’. The funny thing is that before his work on suicide was published in 1897 he first needed to establish that ‘anomie’ (normlessness) was a result of “the division of labour in society” - a work he published in 1893. Now, I do not want to go into a discussion about the correctness of these statements, but just want to stress that something as important as a work on the division of labour not leaving a great imprint on the profession might tell you something. The thing is that if a sociologist knows about the division of labour I am willing to bet that it will only be instrumental in explaining a social phenomena, and not as something fundamental about human relations, i.e. a superficial understanding far removed from practical ricardian examples of absolute and comparative advantages.

Also, a word of warning regarding a sociologist calling himself an economist. Please forget about it at this very instant! Seeing as you ended your remark with a smiley I suppose you were just kidding. If the situation is similar in the US, however, I would think that, if economics is sometimes considered the abysmal science, sociology must at least be something much worse! (No wonder some of them calls themselves economists then.)

This is really an expression of someone who is far from proud of his/her profession. Hardly anything worth mimicking! Oh, and this nonsense about sociology being a collectivistic discipline is just that; nonsense! There is plenty of sociologists both historically and now employing methodological individualism (Ferdinand Tönnies could be worth it to look up). It might not be founded on praxeological terms but then that is just a matter of writing a correcting paper. Indeed I would predict that most sociologist are way better at, and rooted deeper in, methodology, ontology, epistemology. Again I base this on the fact that my sister is strong in this regard. This is quite the opposite of being a proof regarding the general state of sociologist of course, but at least it tells you that the possibility to study these terms extensively is there.

I could really go on and on about how sociology could be utilized within libertarian scope á la Rothbard or used to rebut the idea of ‘Homo Oeconomicus’ just as the Austrian School of Economics has done, but that is hardly relevant at this point. Instead I will end my reply with my idea of the main difference in mainstream sociology and economics: Model building and Surveys.

Sociologist focus on societal hierarchies, statuses, roles, relations, mores. None of these terms really lends itself well to ideas of e.g. differential equations, supply & demand, although it can sometimes encompass ideas of scarcity. Hence model building and surveys in this field is flavoured by this. Quite the opposite is prevalent in economics where general equilibrium models is all about differential equations and supply & demand as you might know.

I know the position many on this site has regarding model building, but you cannot escape the fact that in order to major in a field and perhaps later on get a ph.d. you need to understand the inner mechanics, the math if you will, underlying these models. Otherwise you will not be taken seriously and thus you cannot effectively rebut the arguments of the mainstream; why does the mainstream allow Robert Murphy and parts of the George Mason faculty to employ austrain terms if not because they understand the present level of math utilized in mainstream economics?

Thus my main point of this reply is the following: Both fields are distinct fields and you cannot study one an suddenly become well versed in both. Quite simple really when you think about it… why didn’t I just write that to begin with

[Bank_Run]

How very dark of a name Corpus.

Great answer though.

Stephen your question I find to be very good, and well rebuted by our new danish friend.

I would like to take a different approach.

What is sociology? Not an easy awnser. It may depend on how you define it, but I have found a fine definition of it from the american sociological association…

Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how people interact within these contexts. Since human behavior is shaped by social factors, the subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to the hostile mob; from organized crime to religious cults; from the divisions of race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture; and from the sociology of work to the sociology of sports. In fact, few fields have such broad scope and relevance for research, theory, and application of knowledge.

Sociology provides many distinctive perspectives on the world, generating new ideas and critiquing the old. The field also offers a range of research techniques that can be applied to virtually any aspect of social life: street crime and delinquency, corporate downsizing, how people express emotions, welfare or education reform, how families differ and flourish, or problems of peace and war. Because sociology addresses the most challenging issues of our time, it is a rapidly expanding field whose potential is increasingly tapped by those who craft policies and create programs. Sociologists understand social inequality, patterns of behavior, forces for social change and resistance, and how social systems work.

What is economics?

Both the definition and the precise domain of economics are subjects of controversy within philosophy of economics. At first glance, the difficulties in defining economics may not appear serious. Economics is, after all, concerned with aspects of the production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of commodities. But this claim and the terms it contains are vague; and it is arguable that economics is relevant to a great deal more. It helps to approach the question, “What is economics?” historically, before turning to comments on contemporary features of the discipline.

…from this great article The Philosophy of Economics I reccomend reading the whole article.

I hope that we can dispell some of the classic sophisms behind these fields of study.

It may be that we have to disect the specific thinkers involved.

All groups are made of individuals, and all individuals are unique, and are wonderfully diverse and made of several factors.

Some say that if X layman was conditioned like a dog, than X layman must do this or that or be in the group of laymen. Well I say that many of the so called lay, are really just excellent for being themselves. From any given point is an infinite amount of possibilities, and any given individual has choice of his actions. Also, the situations are usually unique themselves.

I don’t want to ramble on. I would like to reccomend this nice article on Methodological Individualism.

Again, I favour the misesian method and reccomend both Theory and History, and Epistemological Problems of Economics.

[corpus_delicti]

Bank Run:

Just to be clear. My above conclusion, regarding sociology and economics as totally distinct, is drawn within the scope of the mainstream view. When it comes to my personal view I agree with you completely; indeed, Theory and History is the primary piece of literature I have been trying to convince my sister to read - it might be possible to ignore praxeology, but once you do not it becomes futile to resist it!

Regarding my avatar-name; it might be dark, but living in a country where classical liberalists and conservatives are in power only as long as they adopt social democratic policies should allow for a little darkness In any case it is not the darkness of the name that is important to me, but what it means: The Body of Crime, i.e. if you cannot prove a crime has been comitted you cannot convict someone of the alleged crime. And this very fact becomes important to point out when discussing from a libertarian world view where all you get to hear is alleged crimes of materialism, individualism, capitalism and even thought-crime for uttering the non-aggression theorem. My last defence always seems to be that if they cannot prove it they have no case. Now, obviously they can’t be bothered to get the facts about libertarianism straight and, by implication, they have no case against it.

Also ‘bank run’ might seem a little dark to someone not seeing the connection between fractional reserve banking and possibility of bank runs, so without sounding too antagonistic (that is not my intention at least) I would say; touché

Oh and Thank you for the welcome.