A reader asks,
Why do economists have such contempt for sociologists?
…I was thinking of this because of your posts on “normative sociology”
1. The term “normative sociology” comes from Robert Nozick, and he described it as the study of what the causes of problems ought to be. I use it as shorthand for ideologically biased social research, in any discipline.
2. Mainstream economists do have contempt for sociology. When Robert Solow wanted to write about the causes of sticky wages, he apologized for doing “amateur sociology.”
Mainstream economists see themselves as studying phenomena that are tangible and quantifiable. I define sociology as the study of informal authority, and informal authority is inherently intangible and less readily quantifiable. Where mainstream economists can go wrong is to dismiss phenomena that are intangible and less readily quantifiable as unimportant. I think that mainstream economists are less scornful of such phenomena now than they were when I was in graduate school, so on that score the contempt for sociologists probably has trended down.
My own concern with sociologists is with the preponderance of left-wing bias embedded in much research. But I have been predicting that economics will go down that same path.
More of my thoughts can be found at The Sociology of Sociologists and How Effective is Economic Theory?
When I was an undergraduate, some of us interested in economics would say,
“Sociology is about what people say they value;
economics is about what people show they value.”
I did read too many sociology articles that relied on “surveys”: asking people questions in a fairly unsophisticated way and then drawing strong conclusions.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017 was awarded to Richard H. Thaler “for his contributions to behavioural economics”.
That makes two in a row,
For more:
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/
Today 10/9/2017 (Monday)
Prof. Kling,
Thank you for suggesting this thread. It was I who suggested this question as suitable for further exploration.
“Informal authority” is very far from what I would have suggested Sociology specialized in. Probably I would have said either “the description of modern western, industrial societies,” or “the study of modern societies more particularly in terms of categorizing individuals and groups into classes, strata, ranks, and occupational groups, and with a focus (at least partially) on modern bureaucracy and formal record keeping by organizations.
In that sense, Anthropology seems more interested in the “informal” than Sociology does, to the extent that they are both studying the same situation.
Sociology tends to study formal bureaucracy, with a preference for written records.
= – = – = – =
As I recall, the triumvirate of founders of Sociology are
Marx
Weber
Durkheim.
So I have seen it enumerated–but where? not sure.
= – = – = – = =
An aphorism pops into my head, unbidden:
“Economics studies how people make make choices, and
Sociology studies how people don’t have any choices to make. ”
Obviously if Economists study choice and Sociologists think people don’t have much choice, the practitioners of the two disciplines are going to have trouble seeing eye to eye or understanding each other.
I’m sorry I haven’t read your works you mentioned. I’ll see if I can read them before making any further comments.