Beyond the market : the social foundations of economic efficiency
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Bibliographic Information
Beyond the market : the social foundations of economic efficiency
Princeton University Press, c2002
- Other Title
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Grenzen des Marktes : die sozialen Grundlagen wirtschaftlicher Effizienz
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"Originally published in German as Grenzen des Marktes : die sozialen Grundlagen wirtschaftlicher Effizienz, c1997 by Campus Verlag"--T.p. verso
Bibliography: p. [327]-346
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Beyond the Market launches a sociological investigation into economic efficiency. Prevailing economic theory, which explains efficiency using formalized rational choice models, often simplifies human behavior to the point of distortion. Jens Beckert finds such theory to be particularly weak in explaining such crucial forms of economic behavior as cooperation, innovation, and action under conditions of uncertainty--phenomena he identifies as the proper starting point for a sociology of economic action. Beckert levels an enlightened critique at neoclassical economics, arguing that understanding efficiency requires looking well beyond the market to the social, cultural, political, and cognitive factors that influence the coordination of economic action. Beckert searches social theory for the components of an alternative theory of action, one that accounts for the social embedding of economic behavior. In Durkheim and Parsons he finds especially useful approaches to cooperation; in Luhmann, a way to understand how people act under highly contingent conditions; and in Giddens, an understanding of creative action and innovation.
Together, these provide building blocks for a research program that will yield a theoretically sophisticated understanding of how economic processes are coordinated and the ways that markets are embedded in social, cultural, and cognitive structures. Containing one of the most fully informed critiques of the neoclassical analysis of economic efficiency--as well as one of the most thoughtful blueprints for economic sociology--this book reclaims for sociology the study of one of the most important arenas of human action.
Table of Contents
PREFACE vii INTRODUCTION 1 PART ONE: CRITIQUE 5 ONE: The Limits of the Rational-Actor Model as a Microfoundation of Economic Efficiency 7 Cooperation 18 Uncertainty 36 Innovation 50 PART TWO: CONCEPTS 67 TWO: Emile Durkheim: The Economyas Moral Order 69 Sociology as the Science of Morality 74 Durkheim's Critique of Economics 76 Economic Institutions as Moral Facts 81 Anomie and Forced Division of Labor 114 Stabilizing Economic Relations with Professional Groups 119 Cooperation and Morality 122 Appendix: Systematizing the View of the Economy in Sociological Theory: Durkheim through Weber to Parsons 125 THREE: Talcott Parsons: The Economyas a Subsystem of Society 133 Economic and Sociological Theory in Parsons's Early Work 135 The Economy as the Adaptive Subsystem of Society 149 The Boundary Proceses of the Economy 156 The Institutional Establishment of Economic Rationality 192 Cooperation and Interpenetration 197 FOUR: Niklas Luhmann: The Economyas a Autopoietic System 201 The Self-Referentiality of the Economy 207 The Reentry of the Excluded Third Party 216 System and Action 233 FIVE: Anthony Giddens: Actor and Structure in Economic Action 241 Interpretation and Structuration of Economic Action ??? Cooperation and Reflextivity 259 Innovation and Creativity 269 PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS 283 SIX: Perspectives for Economic Sociology 285 NOTES 297 BIBLIOGRAPHY 327 INDEX 347
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