Jens Beckert

Beyond the Market

The Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency
Übersetzer: Harshav, Barbara

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

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.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Seitenzahl: 376
• Erscheinungstermin: 23. September 2002
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 240mm x 161mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 745g
• ISBN-13: 9780691049076
• ISBN-10: 0691049076
• Artikelnr.: 21590434

Autorenporträt

Jens Beckert Translated by Barbara Harshav

Inhaltsangabe

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: Émile 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

Rezensionen

This book reflects impressive intellectual ambition, maturity, and erudition.