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Introduction 9. 10 Smelser/Swedberg
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Introduction 9
not only by economic interest but also by tradition and emotions; furthermore, it is always oriented to some actor(s).
If one disregards single actions, Weber says, and instead focuses on empirical uniformities, it is possible to distinguish three different types: those inspired by " convention, " by " custom" (including " habit" ), and by " interest" ([1922] 1978, 29-36). Most uniform types of action presumably consist of a mixture of all three. Actions that are " determined by interest" are defined by Weber as instrumental in nature and oriented to identical expectations. An example would be the modern market, where each actor is instrumentally rational and counts on everybody else to be so as well.
Weber emphasized that interests are always subjectively perceived; no " objective" interests exist beyond the individual actor. In a typical sentence Weber speaks of " [the] interests of the actors as they themselves are aware of them" ([1922] 1978, 30). He also notes that when several individuals behave in an instrumental manner in relation to their individual interests, the typical result is collective patterns of behavior that are considerably more stable than those driven by norms imposed by an authority. It is, for example, very difficult to make people do something economic that goes against the individual's interest.
A sketch of Weber's economic sociology in Economy and Society yields the following main points. Economic actions of two actors who are oriented to one another constitute an economic relationship. These relationships can take various expressions, including conflict, competition, and power. If two or more actors are held together by a sense of belonging, their relationship is " communal"; and if they are held together by interest, " associative" (Weber [1922] 1978, 38-43). Economic relationships (as all social relationships) can also be open or closed. Property represents a special form of closed economic relationship.
Economic organizations constitute another important form of closed economic relationships. Some of these organizations are purely economic, while others have some subordinate economic goals or have as their main task the regulation of economic affairs. A trade union is an example. Weber attaches great importance to the role in capitalism of the firm, which he sees as the locus of entrepreneurial activity and as a revolutionary force.
A market, like many other economic phenomena, is centered around a conflict of interests—in this case between sellers and buyers (Weber [1922] 1978, 635^Ј0). A market involves both exchange
10 Smelser/Swedberg
and competition. Competitors must first fight out who will be the final seller and the final buyer (" competition struggle" ); and only when this struggle has been settled is the scene set for the exchange itself (" exchange struggle" ). Only rational capitalism is centered around the modern type of market (Weber [1922] 1978, 164-66). In so- called political capitalism the key to profit making is rather the state or the political power that grants some favor, supplies protection, or the like. Traditional commercial capitalism consists of small-scale trading, in money or merchandise. Rational capitalism has emerged only in the West.
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Emile Durkheim
As compared to Weber, Emile Durkheim (1858- 1917) knew less economics, wrote less about economic topics, and in general made less of a contribution to economic sociology (e. g., Steiner 2004). While none of his major studies can be termed a work in economic sociology, all of them nonetheless touch on economic topics (see also Durkheim [1950] 1983). Durkheim also strongly supported the project of developing a sociologie economique by encouraging some of his students to specialize in this area and by routinely including a section on economic sociology in his journal L'annйe sociologique. At one point he gave the following definition of economic sociology:
Finally there are the economic institutions: institutions relating to the production of wealth (serfdom, tenant farming, corporate organization, production in factories, in mills, at home, and so on), institutions relating to exchange (commercial organization, markets, stock exchanges, and so on), institutions relating to distribution (rent, interest, salaries, and so on). They form the subject matter of economic sociology. (Durkheim [1909] 1978b, 80)
Durkheim's first major work, The Division of Labor in Society (1893), has most direct relevance for economic sociology. Its core consists of the argument that social structure changes as society develops from its undifferentiated state, in primordial times, to a stage characterized by a complex division of labor, in modern times. Economists, Durkheim notes, view the division of labor exclusively as an economic phenomenon, and its gains in terms of efficiency. What he added was a sociological dimension of the division of labor—how it helps to integrate society by coordinating specialized activities.
As part of society's evolution to a more advanced division of labor, the legal system changes.
From being predominantly repressive in nature, and having its center in penal law, it now becomes restitutive and has its center in contractual law. In discussing the contract, Durkheim also described as an illusion the belief, held by Herbert Spencer, that a society can function if all individuals simply follow their private interests and contract accordingly (Durkheim [1893] 1984, 152). Spencer also misunderstood the very nature of the contractual relationship. A contract does not work in situations where self-interest rules supreme, but only where there is a moral or regulative element. " The contract is not sufficient by itself, but is only possible because of the regulation of contracts, which is social in origin" (Durkheim [1893] 1984, 162).
A major concern in The Division of Labor in Society is that the recent economic advances in France may destroy society by letting loose individual greed to erode its moral fiber. This problematic is often cast in terms of the private versus the general interest, as when Durkheim notes that " subordination of the particular to the general interest is the very well-spring of all moral activity" ([1893] 1984, xliii). Unless the state or some other agency that articulates the general interest steps in to regulate economic life, the result will be " economic anomie, " a topic that Durkheim discusses in Suicide ([1897] 1951, 246ffi, 259). People need rules and norms in their economic life, and they react negatively to anarchic situations.
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In many of Durkheim's works, one finds a sharp critique of economists; and it was Durkheim's conviction in general that if economics was ever to become scientific, it would have to become a branch of sociology. He attacked the idea of homo economicus on the ground that it is impossible to separate out the economic element and disregard the rest of social life ([1888] 1978a, 49-50). The point is not that economists used an analytical or abstract approach, Durkheim emphasized, but that they had selected the wrong abstractions (1887, 39). Durkheim also attacked the nonempirical tendency of economics and the idea that one can figure out how the economy works through " a simple logical analysis" ([1895] 1964, 24). Durkheim referred to this as " the ideological tendency of economics" ([1895] 1964, 25).
Durkheim's recipe for a harmonious industrial society is as follows: each industry should be organized into a number of corporations, in which the individuals will thrive because of the solidarity and warmth that comes from being a member of a group ([18931 1984, Iii). He was well aware of the rule that interest plays in economic life, and in The
Elementary Forms of Religious Life he stresses that " the principal incentive to economic activity has always been the private interest" ([1912] 1965, This does not mean that economic life is purely self-interested and devoid of morality: " We remain [in our economic affairs] in relation with others; the habits, ideas and tendencies which education has impressed upon us and which ordinarily preside de over our relations can never be totally absent” (390). But even if this is the case, the social element has another source other than the economy and will eventually be worn down if not renewed.
Georg Simmel
Simmel's works typically lack references to economics as such. Simmel (1858-1918), like Durkheim, usually viewed economic phenomena within some larger, noneconomic setting. Nonetheless, his work still has relevance for economic sociology.
Much of Simmel's most important study, Soziologie (1908), focuses on the analysis of interests. He suggested what a sociological interest analysis: should look like and why it is indispensable to sociology. Two of his general propositions are that interests drive people to form social relations, and that it is only through these social relations that interests can be expressed:
Sociation is the form (realized in innumerable different ways) in which individuals grow together into a unity and within which their interests are realized. And it is on the basis of their interests—sensuous or. deal, momentary or lasting, conscious or unconscious, causal or teleological—that individuals form such units. (Simmel [1908] 1971, 24)
Another key proposition is that economic interests, like other interests, can take a number of different social expressions (26).
Soziolojyie also contains a number of suggestive analyses of economic phenomena, among them competition. In a chapter on the role of the number of actors in social life, Simmel suggests that competition can take die form of tertius gaudens " lie third who benefits" ). In this situation, which involves three actors, actor A turns to advantage the fact that actors B and C are competing for A's favor—to buy something, to sell something, or the like. Competition is consequently not seen as something that only concerns the competitors (actor B and C); it is in addition related to actor A, the target of the competition. Simmel also distinguishes competition from conflict. While a conflict typically means a confrontation between two ac-
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