1. What we call social science ought to be called the study of human conflict and cooperation.
2. Sociology ought to be the study of human conflict and cooperation in the larger society, in the realm of informal authority, its sources and uses. Social norms and hierarchies are important components of informal authority.
3. When we study human conflict and cooperation in close personal relationships, we are mostly in the realm of psychology.
4. When we study human conflict and cooperation in the larger society in the realm of specialization and trade, we are mostly in the realm of economics.
5. When we study human conflict and cooperation in the larger society in the realm of formal authority, we are mostly in the realm of political science.
I use the phrase “mostly in the realm” because I doubt that any of the four disciplines can be totally isolated from the others.
6. When we study human conflict and cooperation in a specific time and place, we are mostly in the realm of anthropology. Anthropologists might study the psychology, economics, politics, and sociology of the unit under observation.
7. A business manager needs to handle conflict and cooperation within a firm, which also requires all four basic disciplines. There are aspects of political science (think of corporate governance). Business strategy deals with specialization and trade. Understanding “office politics” requires knowledge of psychology. And managers have to understand the informal sources and uses of authority within the firm, also known as “corporate culture.”
8. Informal authority is complex because there are many intangible factors involved. Sociologists do a disservice when they try to reduce their discipline to the study of tangible factors, such as race, gender, or Marx’s dichotomy of labor and capital.
I also believe that economists and political scientists are guilty of shying away from intangible factors. In Invisible Wealth (first appeared as From Poverty to Prosperity, Nick Schulz and I tried to point out how much you miss when you ignore the intangibles in economics.
9. One can do sociological analysis of particular groups within society. One can do sociological analyis of economists. Or of sociologists. The book I am reading about Pierre Bourdieu has him doing exactly the latter.
10. One of Bourdieu’s themes is that people who are discontented with their social status are prone to make trouble.
11. Without using the term “status-income disconnect,” he suggests that a source of discontent for those in academia is that their economic capital does not match their cultural capital.
Very interesting. I’d be willing to read a (well-written) 800 page book that put flesh on those bones.
(One of the more impressive books I’ve read recently is Morris B. Hoffman’s The Punisher’s Brain: The Evolution of Judge and Jury (2014), which is based on the idea of conflict and cooperation–and which is actually broader than the subtitle indicates.)
One of the most useful tidbits that you get from reading Robert L. Trivers and anyone studying “reciprocal altruism” and co-operation is this:
The human brain has a finely calibrated module for “cheater detection.” Once the “cheater” is detected, moralistic impulses well up with a desire to punish.
How do you square this:
“I also believe that economists and political scientists are guilty of shying away from intangible factors. In Invisible Wealth (first appeared as From Poverty to Prosperity, Nick Schulz and I tried to point out how much you miss when you ignore the intangibles in economics.”
with this:
“If you define self-interest broadly enough, then the statement “people pursue their self-interest” becomes irrefutable. And if you cannot refute it, then it is just an empty tautology.”
I suppose the synethesis is that economists should give due credit to intangible factors by nodding to the fields that specialise in them.
That is, public-choice theory is an attempt to use economics outside of its normally imagined domain, but adequately account for the intangibles while staying in a rational-actor framework, economists have to give up on rigour.
I don’t quite buy the synthesis, but it is at least coherent.
Intangible sources of effective authority are different from non-economic components of self-interest.
However, it’s still a good analogy to draw. The same judicious balance in needed for public choice theory. In sociology, avoiding intangibles in too narrow, but allowing for too many possible intangibles produces irrefutable claims. Likewise in public choice. Allowing for any kind of self-interest is too broad, while restricting oneself to purely economic interests in too limited.
It would help a lot if, were one to conduct some kind of “factor analysis” of human behavior, that one could infer that there were just a few, central and fundamental components of intangible authority or non-economic self-interest that, when combined with those concrete social pressures and personal motivations, could account for most of the decisions we see most people make.
Fortunately, it seems to me that we have candidate supplementary incentives that satisfy this explanatory requirement. In particular, the observation of the absolute centrality of prestige and status to human social psychology and behavior helps us fit that bill. If you have a good understanding of what is high status in any particular social context, you can explain a good deal of behavior for most people.
Indeed I would go even further and suggest that instead of adding to Kling’s “economic interests public choice” to a theory that uses a combination of both “economic interests and social status interests”, one could dispense with economic interests altogether. That’s because economic interests are themselves a component of social status, and so one could just have “Social Status Public Choice Theory” (SSPCT)
That is broader and more complete than restricting oneself to merely economic interests, but it simultaneously not as broad as “self-interest” because the set of characteristics that are high or low status in any particular social group are finite and observable.
SSPCT would tell us, for example, one reason why conservative Supreme Court Justices are more likely to “defect” than liberal ones. That because they will get Joe Sobran’s “strange new respect.” Progressivism is high status in our culture and society, and even Justices – who are nearly immune from most economic considerations – still deeply crave esteem, good reputation, influence, prestige, respectability, and the prospect of being remembered as having contributed to a positive legacy.
Another example: McCain recently won another six year term, he’s 80 years old with serious health problems, and so he is probably similarly insulated for ordinary economic interests. He was the devil when running against Obama in 2008, but when he voted to prevent the repeal of the ACA, well, suddenly he’s a hero once more.
Social Status Public Choice Theory explains these instances and accounts for those cases where venal motives for more narrow economic interests are dominant. It even gives us a hint of when particular factors will dominate. The public official deciding on whether to take a bribe when he has reason to believe he won’t get caught, knows he will get no ‘publicity’ for doing the socially desirable thing. In this case economic interests will probably dominate. The Supreme Court Justice knows he can make no money for doing the ideologically high status thing, but will get plenty of laudatory and glorifying praise in the press for it, be more famous than infamous, and get to socialize with other high status people as a result. In that case, prestige interests will dominate.
Both both cases are just specific and extreme instances of a more general Social Status-based theory.
Mises included the study of what is often placed into Sociology within “Praxeology.”
Smith understands language to be a mechanism for sympathetic exchange.
Economists have a comparative advantage in explaining emergent orders.
Public Choice primarily concerns itself with Economics applied to Political Science, with analysis of formal institutions. There’s data there: votes and contributions.
Economics could better engage Sociology by describing informal institutions and social movements as coordination facilitated through sympathetic exchange. There’s less data, but if we start by arguing that voluntary exchanges generated expected surpluses for both parties we can derive theoretical structures that well describe informal institutions and social movements.
I think it is a bit ironic that Public Choice has preoccupied itself with describing “the firm” in social interactions (government) but has neglected to some extend description of “the market” (informal institutions and social movements), given economists’ training in describing the arm’s length interaction of markets.
If there exist good descriptions of this relationship in economics, I would appreciate pointers.
Business Management also involves anthropology if it is at all geographically distributed. Even the differences between e.g. Chicago, San Francisco, and Austin requires an appreciation for how much conflict and cooperation is dependent upon the particularities of people in a given time and place.
I don’t know if this is the standard/accepted formulation for these disciplines, but it is very helpful.
What I have found is this:
1. All disciplines try to encroach on their neighbors.
2. But if they can claim “your project isn’t really x it’s more y” to hurt you if it helps them they will do that.
“11. Without using the term “status-income disconnect,” he suggests that a source of discontent for those in academia is that their economic capital does not match their cultural capital.”
11b. those non-corrupt in politics are unhappy that their economic capital does not match their political capital — unpunished corruption increases their wealth and econ status.
The corrupt Clintons are as rich, or richer, than the “successful” Romney.