Beyond the Market : The Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency

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. CONTENTS......Page 6 PREFACE......Page 8 INTRODUCTION......Page 12 PART ONE: CRITIQUE......Page 16 ONE: The Limits of the Rational-Actor Model as a Microfoundation of Economic Efficiency......Page 18 Cooperation......Page 29 Uncertainty......Page 47 Innovation......Page 61 PART TWO: CONCEPTS......Page 78 TWO: Émile Durkheim: The Economy as Moral Order......Page 80 Sociology as the Science of Morality......Page 85 Durkheim’s Critique of Economics......Page 87 Economic Institutions as Moral Facts......Page 92 Anomie and Forced Division of Labor......Page 125 Stabilizing Economic Relations with Professional Groups......Page 130 Cooperation and Morality......Page 133 Appendix: Systematizing the View of the Economy in Sociological Theory: Durkheim through Weber to Parsons......Page 136 THREE: Talcott Parsons: The Economy as a Subsystem of Society......Page 144 Economic and Sociological Theory in Parsons’s Early Work......Page 146 The Economy as the Adaptive Subsystem of Society......Page 160 The Boundary Processes of the Economy......Page 167 The Institutional Establishment of Economic Rationality......Page 203 Cooperation and Interpenetration......Page 208 FOUR: Niklas Luhmann: The Economy as a Autopoietic System......Page 212 The Self-Referentiality of the Economy......Page 218 The Reentry of the Excluded Third Party......Page 227 System and Action......Page 244 Five: Anthony Giddens: Actor and Structure in Economic Action......Page 252 Interpretation and Structuration of Economic Action......Page 267 Cooperation and Reflextivity......Page 271 Innovation and Creativity......Page 280 PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS......Page 294 SIX: Perspectives for Economic Sociology......Page 296 NOTES......Page 308 BIBLIOGRAPHY......Page 338 A......Page 358 C......Page 359 E......Page 361 F......Page 363 I......Page 364 L......Page 366 M......Page 367 N......Page 368 P......Page 369 R......Page 371 S......Page 372 T......Page 374 U......Page 375 Z......Page 376 __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. WHEN modern economics was founded in the late eighteenth century, two axioms that still constitute the paradigmatic core of the discipline were established: the action-theoritical assumption that actors maximize their utility or their profit in their actions; and the idea that decentralized economic processes exist in, or at least strive for, an equilibrium in which the independently acting economic subjects can achieve an optimal realization of their economic plans.