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Economic Sociology in the Next Decade and Beyond Thomas D. Beamish American Behavioral Scientist 2007; 50; 993 DOI: 10.1177/0002764207299350 The online version of this article can be found at: http://abs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/50/8/993

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Economic Sociology in the Next Decade and Beyond

American Behavioral Scientist Volume 50 Number 8 April 2007 993-1014 © 2007 Sage Publications 10.1177/0002764207299350 http://abs.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Thomas D. Beamish University of California, Davis

This article assesses “Economic Sociology in the Next Decade and Beyond.” In addressing this broad thematic, as it relates to what some have called the new economic sociology, the article notes the “legacy effect” that a polemic with conventional economic conceptualizations has had on the recent reemergence and shape of this field, the relationship that the predominate schools of thought have to one another and the centrifugal tendencies they currently exhibit in this field, and the relationship this field of study currently has to general sociological theories and research streams. The article expressly argues that it is essential to the current and future relevance of the new economic sociology that it seek to bridge key concepts and ideas across methodologically and substantively distinct subfoci within its purview; enhance the theoretical continuity between its findings and theoretical insights and those that explain more generic sociological processes; and more explicitly theorize the role of agency, materiality, and the place of inequality in economic contexts, especially markets, as these are currently undertheorized in this field of study. Keywords: sociological theory; economic sociology; economic agency; economic institutions; economic inequality; markets; culture; interpretation; rationality

T

he task of this article is to address “Economic Sociology in the Next Decade and Beyond.” Specifically, the article assesses “where economic sociology has been” and “the contemporary state of economic sociology” and proffers a preference with regard to “where economic sociology should go in the future,” or at least where the author would like to see more directed energy spent in this field. In addressing this theme and these three broad questions, the article is organized around its answers. First, the article addresses the legacy a polemic with conventional economic models has had on the shape of scholarship in the field and whether continuing to argue with conventional economics is productive, counterproductive, or both. Next, the article outlines the contemporary centrifugal tendencies of this field and the relationship that its predominate schools of thought have to one another and to general sociological theories and research streams. Finally, the article concludes with some thoughts

Author’s Note: The author would like to thank Patrick Carol, Fred Block, and Vicki Smith for useful comments on earlier versions of this article. The opinions and judgments advanced in this article are the sole responsibility of the author. 993 Downloaded from http://abs.sagepub.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA DAVIS on April 6, 2007 © 2007 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

994 American Behavioral Scientist

and preferences regarding neglected theoretical aspects of economic sociology that require increased attention and improvement.

Where Has Economic Sociology Been? In answering where economic sociology has been, two issues indelibly mark its historical legacy and hence, in part, its current form. First, a polemic with classical and micro economics (hereafter conventional economics)1 that continues to haunt, invigorate, and in many respects organize the field. Second, the relationship the schools of thought that predominate within economic sociology have to one another and to general theoretical currents in sociology. Specifically, my attention will focus on economic sociological research and theory that has, of late, focused primarily on market dynamics, what might rightly be called the sociology of markets. Although this admittedly gives short shrift to overlapping interests—development studies, labor stratification, as well as work and occupations that could fall within and inclusive definition of “economic sociology” (more on this later)—the sociology of markets currently sits at the figurative center of what some have called the new economic sociology (Dobbin, 2004; Fligstein, 2002; Granovetter, 1992; Guillén, 2002; Zelizer, 2002).

The Reemergence of Economic Sociology The recent rise of the new economic sociology (hereafter simply economic sociology) as a distinct arena of study with a principal focus on modern market contexts reflects a view change that took hold in the 1980s (Smelser & Swedberg, 1994). The change corresponded with movement, primarily among organizational sociologists and allied scholars, from internally focused accounts of firm dynamics to those that increasingly focused on the environmental contexts within which any given corporate form was embedded (see classics Hannan & Freeman, 1977; Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Williamson, 1975).2 Markets became a central focus of attention as they are the primary location within which modern states, firms, and individuals involved in economic activities conduct themselves. As sociologists drew conclusions from their “dirty” empirical research and compared them to the “clean” models posited by conventional economists, their answers departed from economic orthodoxy (Hirsch, Michaels, & Friedman, 1987). This brought back into focus an argument that had lain largely dormant within this subfield for some time—the philosophical divide between classical economic and sociological accounts of economy. The philosophical roots of the polemic are found in the social commentary and writings of early political economists Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. Their legacy is further reflected in the works of both Weber (1922/1968) and Durkheim (1984) and later Karl Polanyi (1947, 1957b), who also debated contemporaries in the Austrian School of Economics (Hayek, 1994; Menger, 1950; Mises, 1980).


Beamish / Economic Sociology in the Next Decade and Beyond 995

Simultaneously, the polemic with conventional economics and increased attention to market formation by sociologists also reflected rapidly changing economic contexts—especially salient was the successful growth of East Asian states, markets, and firms—and the inadequacy of classical and microeconomic models (as well as their primary alter “dependency theory”) to explain them. In contrast to voluntaristic and instrumental logics characteristic of conventional economic models, organizational and network (Baker, 1984; Biggart & Hamilton, 1992; Burt, 1983; Granovetter, 1985; White, 1981) as well as development scholars (Berger, 1986; Castells, 1992; Gereffi, 1989, 1994) observed the central part that structure and culture played in the formation of markets, the shape of industries, and the behavior of firms (Hamilton & Biggart, 1988). The timely publication of Granovetter’s (1985) programmatic statement “Economic Action and Social Structure” provided the context for a theoretical realignment. Granovetter emphasized the social embeddedness of all economic action and explicitly broke with what he termed, borrowing from Wrong (1961), the oversocialized views associated with Parson’s legacy and the undersocialized views of conventional economic models. Along with Granovetter’s piece, seminal work by the likes of White (1981), Burt (1982), Hamilton and Biggart (1988), and Zelizer (1979, 1988) worked to galvanize the reemergence of economic sociology. With the publication of Smelser and Swedberg’s (1994) Handbook of Economic Sociology, the die was cast; the tome worked to institutionalize the new economic sociology as a distinct arena of study. By January 2001, economic sociology was officially recognized and granted section status by the American Sociological Association.

The Polemic This attenuated history renders the central position that an ongoing polemic with conventional economics has taken in economic sociology old and new. The current axis of this polemic reflects both different ways of approaching similar problems as well as the tone and place of conventional economic conceptualizations in contemporary society. In answering basic questions about the workings of the formal economy, such as how economic actors coordinate with others who likewise seek to interact and exchange goods and services, conventional economics’ answer is straightforward and wonderfully parsimonious, if to most sociologists woefully undersocialized market dynamics involve abstractly conceived autonomous individuals coming together to transact in interactions governed by fluctuations in price. When the highest bidder succeeds, the market clears. Imbalances in offers to buy and sell provoke changes in price (i.e., supply), providing markets with what economists view as their order producing equilibrium (Eatwell, Milgate, & Newman 1987). Price, as a reflection of marginal utility, is the mechanism through which Adam Smith’s invisible hand works its magic. The normative aspects emerge from the conventional economic belief that pure market dynamics reflect an emergent, naturally occurring order that is the most efficient means for allocating goods and services in



society. If free market conditions are to reign and Pareto efficient outcomes are to be realized, they must be rid of the social distortions that disrupt their natural tendencies toward efficiency. “Sociability,” in the form of social ties, norms of reciprocity, and familial obligations, among other social processes, has no constructive place in this conceptualization, where the efficient distribution of goods and services is the end game. In this view, the economy as a theoretical abstraction is distinct from the other elements that characterize society. In a word, the economy is purposefully reified. Economic theory has not stopped with the economy, however, as evidenced in the work of prominent contemporary economists (Becker, 1976, 1996; Hirshleifer, 1985). Increasingly, over time, conventional economic models have colonized a larger and larger portion of the social scientific commons as their assumptions and models have been imported into political science (Chong, 2000; Popkin, 1979) and sociology (Coleman, 1990, 1994; Hechter & Kanazawa, 1997). In extreme examples, economists posit their model to be both a description of how (all) human societies materially (re)produce themselves as well as a general theory of the underlying motivations that unite all human exchange and by extension are the bedrock for all human interaction (Hirshleifer, 1985). In this fiat, individual self-interest and utility maximization govern human behavior whether economic or not. As aggregate abstractions, social structure and cultural elements, at best, are viewed as indirect influences on individual actor choice, a patina on an otherwise deeper set of selfinterested motivations (Becker & Murphy, 2000). Over the past two decades, as economists have found their universalistic suppositions concerning actor motives routinely violated (Akerlof, 2001), the cutting edge of economics has moved increasingly toward the study of special conditions and “special cases” (Akerlof, 1980; Akerlof & Yellen, 1985). For example, Akerlof, Kahenman, and Schelling have been awarded recent Nobel Prizes for complicating and improving on conventional economic suppositions, those specifically being methodological individualism and comprehensive rationality, and thus strengthening understandings of economic decision making. Economists, with the help of cognitive theory (Kahenman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982), game theory (Schelling, 1960), and even organizational theory (Stiglitz, 1999), have sought to understand not simply economic contexts and transactions, but broadly the systematic basis of irrationality and “miscalculation” (Kahenman & Tversky, 1973, 2000) and even failed reform (cf., Stiglitz, 2002). Although this research seemingly seeks to bridge the substantive divide between a social view of economy and a utility maximizing one— that is, one that admits markets are real places reflective of socially embedded actors—it is against the continued backdrop of a reified set of assumptions that conventional economics compares and contrasts its findings and recommends its remedies and on which its normative prescriptions continue to be based. The empirical study of economic contexts by sociologists, the conclusions they have drawn, and the theories they have developed have on rare occasion complimented (Coleman, 1994), mostly complicated, and even inverted conventional economic



assumptions and claims (Fligstein, 2001; Granovetter, 1985; White, 1981, 2002). Some sociologists have reacted vituperatively to conventional economic preferences, models, and policy prescriptions, claiming that far from promoting efficiency and uniform prosperity they promote inequality and socially “inefficient” outcomes because they ignore empirical reality in favor of a reified theoretical object (Block, 1996; Braverman, 1998; Edwards, 1978, 1979; Marglin, 1974; Molotch, 1990; Perrow, 1972). Still others have pointed out that their argument with conventional economics is more than just a theoretical difference of opinion because economic presumptions and thus preferences are also practiced by governments, private firms, and world governance bodies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization (Bourdieu, 1999, 2001). In short, they claim, conventional economic models are both academic theories as well as well funded, rewarded, regulated, and enforced by governmental institutions and powerful economic actors that deem them preferable and justify them with claims of their “naturalness” (Block, 1994, 1996). Likewise, conventional economists strongly differ from a sociological view that approaches economic contexts more agnostically. For a majority of economic sociologists, exchange relations, like other social affairs, reflect inherently social processes and relations that may or may not reflect or promote the “truly efficient” exchange and distribution of goods and services. On this, economic sociologists are not unified. Some believe social relations promote efficiency by lowering the cost of transactions (Uzzi, 1996, 1999; see also institutional economist Williamson, 1985), whereas others find that “efficiency” is an inadequate term when survival is the goal, preferring “effectiveness” instead (Fligstein, 2001). Still others view efficiency as irrelevant, because markets reflect elite control as evidenced in lending practices, interlocking directorates, and the general oligopoly of the current economic system (Braverman, 1998; Edwards, 1978, 1979; Marglin, 1974; Perrow, 2002). For sociologists, “efficiency” tends to be an empirical question not a shared assumption or even (necessarily) the aim of their research. Although amongst themselves economic sociologists may disagree on many items, most do not adhere to conventional economic suppositions or its normative agenda. For better and for worse, then, the polemic with conventional economists has lent economic sociology a good bit of its current form (Swedberg, 1987) and much of its current energy. The argument is a substantively based one that this author believes should continue, albeit in a modified form and not for its own sake. This may surprise some, as of late there seems a chorus of voices objecting to a continued dispute with conventional economics, claiming economic sociology should “move on.” Yet in defense of the argument with conventional economics, this is not a purely rhetorical exercise, a desire to spearhead an intellectual insurgency, nor reducible to something as crass as career building opportunism (e.g., Postrel, 2005). What is more, it need not take form as a condemnation of commercial endeavor, monetization, and cost accounting, that is, modern markets or an equally naive celebration of social



spheres where caring and substantive concerns supposedly reign supreme. A “hostile worlds” view, whether presented via economic assumptions or through simplistic diatribes against them, is equally reductionist and unproductive (see Zelizer, 2005a; this issue). Rather, economic sociology’s argument with conventional economics should be rooted in the economic contexts that practitioners observe, not in reified distinctions that reflect conventional economic claims. Economic sociologists have shown empirically that economic relations do indeed involve many of the aspects that typify “formal economic” considerations. However, they have also found that the same economic contexts involve a great deal more than the ideal typifications operationalized in conventional economic accounts. Indeed, economic contexts, even modern markets, must include more than self-interested utility maximization as economic exchange like any other kind cannot be based solely upon it (Abolafia, 1996; Biggart & Beamish, 2003). When analytically decomposed, sociologists have repeatedly shown economic contexts to be relational, to require a modicum of intersubjectivity, and to reflect trust producing social ties that permit the material production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services to proceed. For example, Beamish and Biggart (2005a; see also Biggart & Delbridge, 2004) questioned the contemporary reification of “market dynamics” in economic sociology and related scholarship as limiting to how economic relations (broadly conceived) are conceptualized. They suggest instead that sociologists embrace a more robust notion of “exchange relations” to characterize economic transaction that can embrace both prototypical market exchanges but also other coconstitutive forms of social and material transfer (see Polanyi, 1957a). Exchange, as conceived by Max Weber (1922/1968), is a “voluntary agreement involving the offer of any sort of present, continuing, or future utility in exchange for utilities of any sort offered in return.” Exchange can involve money, goods, and/or services but can also reflect less tangible elements like respect, reciprocity, obligation, duty, and even moral convictions (Polanyi 1957a, 1957b). Use of exchange relations better accommodates the full range of social interactions, social institutions, and social structures characteristic of social worlds, including market-based ones. Pursuing a more robust notion of economy, as for example demonstrated through a focus on exchange relations, would provide economic sociology the means to celebrate its theoretical diversity while simultaneously provide a context for the pursuit of greater theoretical depth and coherence. It would also push economic sociology to move well beyond the limitations that accompany reified distinctions such as those that often accompany accounts of the “formal economy” and “market dynamics.” This is because, as the best economic sociology has shown time and again, the formal economy is itself informal in its actual operation; individuals rely on social ties, ad hoc solutions, and habits of the mind and heart to make so-called formal exchange work (see Molotch, 1990).



The Contemporary State of Economic Sociology On the contemporary state of economic sociology, three significant issues emerge that are related to the foregoing discussion. These are its lack of a galvanizing yet inclusive theoretical “centerpiece,” its contemporary analytic divisions and the relations that characterize those divisions, and its rapport with broader sociological streams of thought and theory. Addressing each of these requires that I collapse the contemporary state of economic sociology with my comments concerning where I would prefer more attention to be paid within it, as my preferences reflect my view of trends (or lack there of). Likewise, my stated preferences for the future are threefold. They involve the new economic sociology paying greater attention and better theorizing agency, materiality, and inequality in the contexts it studies.

Searching for a Substantive Center Thus far, I have argued that a polemic with conventional economics has played a central role in the form and directions that economic sociology has taken and is taking. Yet this ongoing argument is not as clearly oppositional as it may first appear; whereas economists and economic sociologist certainly disagree on the basis of economic transaction, they have tended to agree on what requires explanation. That is, while arguing over what is salient in any given market context, economic sociologists have typically prima facie accepted conventional economic distinctions that set off the “formal economy,” such as markets, from other social worlds (Krippner, 2001; Polanyi, 1957a; Zelizer, 2002). Accepting this distinction largely reflects the place of conventional economic assumptions in industrial societies. That the economy is viewed as autonomous from society is “taken for granted” by economists, certainly, but this view is also mobilized by business leaders and the general public and has been explicitly (Coleman, 1994; Parsons & Smelser, 1956) and implicitly (see Krippner’s [2001] critique) operationalized as such by economic sociologists. In short, conventional economic suppositions about market behavior, as a social construct, has become a societal, that is, cultural assumption. The distinction is something economic sociologists should study, not accept or assume. Indeed, this very assumption has put economic sociology in the unenviable position of endlessly defending and justifying its claims but also at times its very existence. The burden of endlessly justifying claims, building arguments around the denial of conventional economic presumptions, and yet arguing on a terrain that is defined largely by its substantive adversary has indeed put economic sociology in a tough spot. This is where criticisms levied against continuing an argument with conventional economics holds merit; shared antipathy for conventional economic suppositions is not enough (see Fligstein, 2001; Swedberg, this issue). Economic sociology requires its own bulkhead or bulkheads and must define them in terms native to it, not those defined by conventional economics.



Within and Between Of course, where economic sociology is going reflects more than its relationship to conventional economics. Economic sociology’s future direction(s) is equal parts reflective of the relations that prevail between its predominate analytic strategies as well as their individual and collective relationship to the broad theoretical streams that define sociology in general. As a field of study, economic sociology reflects three primary substantive axes. The axes to which I make reference include micromacro, agency-structure, and interpretation3-network dimensions. Obviously, no single one of these axes constitutes the basis for any given study. Rather, linkages across these are the rule. Specifically, economic sociology has characteristically pursued analysis that highlights macro-structural-network, macro-structural-institutional, and micro-structural-network aspects of economic contexts. With a good bit less frequency has economic sociology approached economic contexts as micro, agential, and interpretation-based, assessing them as sociocultural arenas reflective of intersubjectivity, social process, and meaning reproduction. Before moving on, this point deserves attention. More than a decade ago, Zukin and DiMaggio (1990, p. 3) identified at least four types of “embeddedness” including structural, cognitive, cultural, and political types, of which the last three reflect predominantly cultural and meaning based elements. These are aspects of economic sociology that could be markedly improved upon (I take this up in more detail below). Macro and micro structural approaches have emphasized such matters as underlying roles, status hierarchies, and dependencies that characterize markets and fields of economic actors and the competitive advantages that accrue and that predict outcomes (Baker, 1984; Burt, 1992; Dobbin & Dowd, 1997, 2000; Freeman, Carroll, & Hannan, 1983; Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Podolny, 1994). Cultural and institutionalist approaches view economic contexts as socially constructed affairs. Cultural arguments emphasize the meaning-filled and process-oriented nature of economic contexts (Abolafia, 1996; Biggart, 1989; DiMaggio, 1994; Spillman, 1999; Zelizer, 2005b; Zukin & DiMaggio, 1990). Institutional arguments, primarily macro, emphasize stable forms of meaning, such as those that underlie law and regulation or those reflected in organizational forms, as structural influences (Dobbin, 1994; Fligstein, 1990; Hamilton, 1994). The result of these very different views of economic context— and the many theoretical subdivisions that further describe each general approach— has been a good bit of centrifugal rather than centripetal energy. Economic sociology has spun ever outward as sociologists have investigated new cases and gained new insights that reinforce their differing views and/or their different couplings of these basic substantive axes. Clearly, the current lack of theoretical center in economic sociology that can accommodate its theoretical diversity while simultaneously allowing for the pursuit of greater theoretical depth and coherence flows from the substantive differences that characterize its practitioners. For example, the study of culture and interpretation is



centered on meaning and meaning production, which is necessarily discursive, categorical, and experiential. Whereas more structurally oriented network analysts (Baker & Faulkner, 1990; Burt, 1987, 1992; Granovetter, 1985; Podolny, 1993) emphasize an anticategorical imperative in which the attributes of actors (race, class, gender) are rejected in favor of their relative roles and positions as well as a rejection of either normative or interpretivist explanations of social action resulting from network position (Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994, pp. 1414-1416). To blame this on epistemological differences alone, however, would be reductionist. Ironically, the lack of crossover and extensive exchange also flows from professional networks themselves and the meanings they attach to what is and is not legitimate research, given one’s expertise and substantive emphases. Straying into adjacent arenas of study can open one to criticism from all perspectives and thus scholars, especially young ones, seldom do so. In contrast, as economic sociology’s empirical work has progressed, such as that on networks, ecologies and institutional fields, and culture and interpretation it has become increasingly apparent that alone, none of these theoretical reductions will suffice (cf., Baum & Powell, 1995; Fligstein, 1995; Granovetter, 1992, 2002; Powell, 1998; Swaminathan & Carroll, 2000). In light of advancements, it is most productive to think of social structure, cultural constructions, and with them interpretation (in the broadest sense) as coconstitutive. Hence, the cross-fertilization of the earlier identified axes is critical to a thorough deepening of sociological theories of economic contexts. The point: Whereas all the centripetal energy in economic sociology is certainly a sign of a great deal of researcher enthusiasm and a positively growing field, it would seem an excellent moment to pursue theoretical synthesis. No doubt, this would both improve the overall explanatory power and coherence of economic sociology’s theory.

A Conversation With the “Outside” Along with the deepening of theory through greater synthesis, there is a comparable need for economic sociology to open its “boundaries” and better integrate outside streams that bear on its central questions and interests. That is, on the balance, the new economic sociology’s conversation with the “outside” could be more intense and sustained. Practitioners have tended to remain firmly ensconced in the literatures of “fellow travelers.”4 Specifically, three aspects of economic contexts are both undertheorized in contemporary economic sociology and important to more complete understandings of them. They are the place of agency, materiality, and inequality in economic contexts generally and markets specifically. Agency in Economy To my comments thus far, which have throughout been entwined with both stated preferences and opinion, I would add that the new economic sociology should give



greater weight to the role of individual agency. At the micro level, network analysis has been clearly dominant. It has provided a strong view of what is undeniably a central aspect of any economy or market—its network structure. Yet given its theoretical bases, network analysis has not—indeed cannot—fully developed a theory of market place settings as eminently social ones, inhabited by intelligent actors who reflect on their own actions and the actions of others in inherently cultural and political contexts through mutually held understandings as well as relational ties (Fligstein, 1996). As an aside, this is one reason conventional economics, and for that matter rational choice models, have been so seductive at this level of explanation. Conventional economic accounts overstate the individual actor and in doing so lend the individual the chimera of (potential) complete control. Whereas a sociological account would indeed involve less unrestrained choice (Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1986, 1990; Sewell, 1992), the new economic sociology could do better developing the role of agency in economic contexts. Outside of a handful of works at this level of analysis (Abolafia, 1996; Beamish & Biggart, 2005b; Biggart, 1989; Biggart & Beamish, 2003; Bourdieu, 2002; Callon, 1998; Smith, 1989; Zelizer, 1994), sociological approaches to economy have not typically afforded the individual the luxury of seeing themselves planning and acting, given the social forces they have described. The new economic sociology needs to if it wants to both present stronger theories of economic action as well as be taken seriously outside its own professional circles by folks (including each of us!) who believe they are “agents” and who are, in some measure, undeniably so. In this, the new economic sociology need not start from scratch. There are excellent theoretical exemplars that address agency in context that are underappreciated in the mainstream of the field. For example, Weber’s (1922/1968) program stressing interpretation (see also Swedberg 2007); pragmatist thought (Cooley, 1913; James, 1908; Mead, 2001); and interpretivists such as Garfinkel (1952, 1967) Goffman (1959, 1962), Strauss (1978), and Fine (1984, 1996); Shumpeter’s (1934) work on entrepreneurialism; as well as recent theoretical work on robust action and cultural pragmatics (Alexander, 2004; Bourdieu, 1977; Emirbayer & Goodwin, 1994; Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Fligstein, 2001; Padgett & Ansell, 1992; Sewell, 1992) all provide the basis for a sociologically inspired view of agency in economic contexts. Likewise, the European Conventions School—a range of approaches that spring from common assumptions—represents a subjectivist approach to economic order that explicitly seeks to theorize agency within constraints (Beckert, 2002; for reviews, see Biggart & Beamish, 2003; Boltanski & Chiapello, 1999; Favereau, 2002; Gomez & Jones, 2000; Thévenot, 1994, 1998; Wilkinson, 1997). Collectively, these approaches are suggestive of the directions an approach to economic sociology sensitive to micro, interpretation, and agency. These theorists tend to share in a view of agency that finds it embedded and thus recursively related to social structure. Coordinated social action, economic or otherwise, these theories inform us, reflects individuals who intend to be “rational” given socially constructed



and intersubjectively shared norms and assumptions and who achieve coordination via active not passive engagement. That is, rules and norms are not merely followed, they are reproduced or better “refashioned” through engagement in ways that typically result in (relative) social stability that nonetheless inherently involves some level of uncertainty whose resolution is the driver of differing levels of social change. Resolving uncertainty through social negotiation provides the dynamism behind social process (Biggart & Beamish, 2003). This should be a bigger part of how economic sociology understands economy, as an emergent process, not a static field of relations. Materiality in Economy Again, economic sociology claims as its domain the study of the social processes that structure how human societies materially produce, distribute, and consume goods and services. Yet explicit attention to the role of materiality has been largely absent from economic sociological analysis. Indeed, attending to the materiality of institutions is an aspect that sociology, in general, continues to struggle over (Pinch, 2003). Science and Technology Studies (STS) with its attention to the nexus of social, technical, and material aspects of systems or “sociotechnical assemblages,” has made inroads that hold considerable overlap with economic sociology’s stated interest and that could deepen its explications. Likewise, environmental sociology has explored “materiality” and has done so in relation to economic systems. Yet its focus has differed from that of economic sociology. While economic sociology has concentrated on the composition of economic relations to better understand the bases for economic transactions, environmental sociology has focused on the composition of economic systems to better understand the ramifications of economic relations for environmental sustainability. STS scholar Weibe Bijker (1987), for example, developed the notion of technological frame to capture the interrelated nature of concepts, techniques, and material artifacts. According to Bijker, technological frames reflect both the “techniques employed by a community in its problem solving” (p. 168) and the technologies too. Problem solving, thus operationalized, recognizes that the trials themselves and the solutions generated reflect both human subjectivity and the material technologies on hand that channel that subjectivity. Likewise, Hughes (1983) showed that the development of the electrical supply system in the United States, far from representing simply a superior technology as conventional conceptualization of innovation and economic transformation often presume, required a powerful system building bricoleur. Edison’s success in initially replacing the system of gas illumination in New York City, backed by a politically potent union of gas lamp lighters, with that of an electrical light infrastructure, was an interwoven process involving both social, technical, and technological (i.e., material) elements. As an entrepreneur, Edison’s success reflected his ability to knit together a network of powerful supporters and functionally adequate technologies that with time came to dominate the energy sector



(see also Hargadon & Douglas, 2001; McGuire & Granovetter, 1998). Hughes added that whereas current sociotechnical assemblages5 may appear retrospectively “stable,” this is an illusion that reflects their power to maintain their viability in the face of ubiquitous and hostile forces. Challenger assemblages are a constant threat to the continued stability of an existent sociotechnical network (Callon, 1992; Hughes, Pinch, & Bijker, 1987; Latour & Porter, 1996; Law & Callon, 1997). STS scholars, then, view sociotechnical systems as embodying a heterogeneous network of elements including social networks, culture, and institutions but also obdurate material-technological implements and resources that are simultaneously involved in any social system as “actors” in their own right. Each aspect, whether human or otherwise, is approached as inherently political; materiality expresses purpose insofar as it changes outcomes (Winner, 1987). In brief, for STS scholarship, the part of contingency and the power to institutionalize a set of sociotechnical relations is central in the preservation (or dismantling) of any given sociotechnical system (Callon & Law, 1989; Latour & Woolgar, 1986), including economic ones (Callon, 1998). Environmental sociologists also investigate material relations. As with economic sociologists, “the economy” is conceived by environmental sociologists as a societal system for the collective production and distribution of resources. However, their focus on these relations differs: environmental sociologists seek to understand the material-ecological and social ramifications of the economic systems they study. Approached in this manner, “the economy” is more than the relations that describe human-to-human transactions alone; those relations are necessarily preceded and followed by human-to-environmental interactions reflected in both the withdrawal and the inevitable addition of "resources" that result from all material transformations (i.e., as specified by the first and second law of thermodynamics [Schnaiberg, 1980]). Environmental sociologists, then, view the economy in more explicitly materialistic terms: it is the primary point of translation between society and the environment (base, waste repository, and living space). Currently there are two principal positions within environmental sociology that present vastly different views of “the economy.” Both, however, agree that the economy is a crucible for environmental change (i.e., problems and solutions). One group of environmental sociologists characterizes society–environment relations as inherently environmentally destructive (Catton, 1980; Foster, 1999, 2002; Logan & Molotch, 1987; Molotch, 1976; O'Connor, 1994; Schnaiberg, 1980; Schnaiberg & Gould, 2000). Capitalist economic logic rewards economic actors—firms and individuals—who degrade the ecological or material “commons” to increase their individual capital accumulation. Given the competitive nature of global capitalism, failure to do so would threaten profitability and hence survival: competition amongst corporations constrains managers and promotes the externalization of ecological and social costs. Governments and workers likewise are also constrained from taking action as they are dependant on firms for tax revenues and jobs. Because this group of environmental sociologists views the global economy as inherently competitive, expansionistic, and ecologically destructive, they have labeled their view the “treadmill of



production thesis” (hereafter TPT (Schnaiberg, 1980; Schnaiberg & Gould, 2000)). They contend that an exchange value conception of nature (Molotch, 1976), upon which capitalism is based, is fundamentally at odds with long term environmental sustainability. From this perspective, society and the environment are in an enduring conflict that bodes poorly for our collective futures. In contrast to TPT, recent proponents of the “ecological modernization thesis” (hereafter EMT (Mol, 1995, 2001; Mol, Lauber, & Liefferink, 2000; Mol & Sonnenfeld, 2000; Spaargaren, Mol, & Buttel, 2000)) posit in technological improvements a move towards the dematerialization and thus increasing sustainability of economic production, not “ecological overshoot” (Catton, 1980). Through what they term the second industrial revolution, EMT contends that industrial advances, mainly technological, are already available, will soon be available, or will be invented in the near future if natural market incentives are promoted by enlightened governments and public pressure. Once the incentives of market capitalism are set free from monopoly and malfeasance, they claim, a “natural capitalism” is sure to arise (Hawken, Lovins, & Lovins, 2000). Green purchasing, corporate performance certificates, such as ISO 14000, and promulgation of the precautionary principle, among a host of initiatives, provide the pretext for the ecological modernization of production. EMT claims that TPT is at best utopist and at worst defeatist, missing the incredible technological transformation taking place that has the capacity to transform economic production and thus society's “triple bottom line” —economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social equality. In response, TPT theorists counter that the gains that are trumpeted by EMT do not reflect free market mechanisms but coercive state regulation and that the “dematerialzation trends” noted by EMT, when rigorously analyzed, are not sustainable and involve more of the same: negative environmental and social externalizations (Pellow, Schnaiberg, & Weinberg, 2000; York, Rosa, & Dietz, 2003). In brief, both STS and environmental sociologists are involved in analyses and lively debates that hold important implications for a more fully articulated understanding of the “the economy” than typically mobilized in the new economic sociology. By crossing over, economic sociology could benefit from overlapping research traditions such as STS and Environmental Sociology. Furthermore, in doing so, STS, environmental sociology, and the new economic sociology could enrich one another in ways that would expand and complement existent research streams and generate a more robust account of economic relations. Inequality in Markets Although inequality, both in terms of power and access to needed opportunities and resources, takes center stage in traditions that overlap with economic sociology (e.g., political economy, development studies, labor studies, and work and occupations), it is rarely forefronted in the contemporary emphasis on market contexts. To be sure, power and dependency have been extensively theorized in macro and structural accounts of economic sociology, yet too often its exercise, especially its basis and



the specific ramifications of its use, remain formless when represented through institutions, exclusionary networks, or couched in terms of generalized competition amongst commercial firms. This seems odd. If economic sociology’s mission is to understand systems of production, consumption, and distribution, then an interest in systemic aspects of inequality in these processes are elemental to this mission. Discrimination reflected in economic processes against the poor, women, minorities, and even the physically unattractive are basic, some claim essential aspects of the “formal economy.” This despite its irrational, nonoptimizing waste of human capital (Molotch, 1990; Perrow, 1972). For example, research on women in national as well as international and global markets has led critical labor scholars to argue that women’s labor has been systematically exploited as both free labor in domestic contexts and low-wage labor in the commercial sector. This, they claim, in part, has laid the basis for both the industrialization of the West (Engels, 1902; Kessler-Harris & Levenson, 1982; Matthaei, 1982) and the expansion of markets into parts of the developing world (Boserup, 1970; Brecher & Costello, 1994; Cheng & Hsuing, 1992; Enloe, 1990; Escobar, 1995; Faber, 1993; Parrado & Zenteno, 2001). Likewise, critical labor and development scholars have found that experience and life chances also systemically differ by race, ethnic, and class background. The lesson: Market relations, like social relations more generally, reflect social structures, cultural norms, beliefs, and affinities that systematically advantage some over others (Appelbaum & Bonacich, 2000; Milkman, 1987; Ridgeway, 1997; Treiman & Roos, 1983). This is yet another reason a naturalized and detached “formal economy” is such a powerful and obfuscating distinction and, perhaps, why inequality has not been vigorously pursued in the new economic sociology. Inequality is not viewed, as evidenced by the lack of attention paid to it, as basic to the logic of formal economic contexts as conventionally defined. Yet partitioning of the economy in such a way does not acknowledge (i.e., “price”) a great deal of what comprises economic process and in so doing ignores the bases of “the economy” as a real set of relations and experiences. Again, economic sociologists should not go along with such a restricted definition; with greater frequency, the new economic sociology should address the place of inequality, materiality, and agency in economic process.

Conclusion In reflecting on the three questions that organized this year’s American Sociological Association (ASA)–invited panel, “Economic Sociology in the Next Decade and Beyond,” and my answers to them, I have argued a handful of points. First, in relation to where economic sociology has come from, I made the case that it reflects a legacy, recently revived, that while exacting a price has also provided the form and impetus for a newfound interest in economic sociology. The argument has deep



substantive roots that are not easily ignored and in many ways should not be. Simply put, conventional economic theory and concepts violate much of what in the past would have been called economic sociology and what contemporary economic sociologists have found underlies exchange: social contexts along with autonomy, embedded ties along with self-interest, substantive as well as instrumental concerns, intentional not comprehensive rationality, satisficing not maximizing behavior, socially constructed worlds not naturally occurring or genetically encoded ones, and so forth. Nonetheless, whereas I argued that the new economic sociology should continue to dialogue with conventional economic assumptions and market-organizing principles, this is not a call to arms; nor is it, admittedly, enough of a basis for a field of study. Specifically, to strengthen its foundation and hence its claims, I made the case that the new economic sociology should seek to more affirmatively bridge its internal divisions as well as more consistently seek to link its findings to general sociological streams of thought and theory. Most important, perhaps, along with this movement toward synthesis, economic sociology should also seek to define its basic motives and rationale for its analyses. Economic sociology should not accept the distinction rampant in conventional economics and implicitly in a great deal of economic sociology that the formal economy is somehow set off from other social and cultural “worlds.” A hostile worlds view, as so eloquently and repeatedly argued by Viviana Zelizer (2002, 2005a, 2005b), is not a productive distinction, as it reflects a reified not empirical distinction. I also argued that to improve the explanatory power of its theory, the new economic sociology should more explicitly articulate the place of agency, materiality, and inequality in economic contexts. To its credit, the new economic sociology has produced very strong scholarship as it has, over the past two decades, focused inward and developed the tools and theory to address the complexities of economic contexts as they empirically present themselves. Yet by both bridging its substantive divisions and more frequently connecting its findings to general theoretical streams, economic sociology would advance still stronger explanations. These steps would also have the simultaneous effect of ridding economic sociology of a most vexing distinction, the reified and hostile worlds view of economic and social spheres. In the final analysis, the social and behavioral repertoires that underlie and animate the formal economy are no more or less social than are those that animate households and love affairs. Assuming otherwise is to confuse the shadow with the shadow maker.

Notes 1. My label, conventional economics, does not mean to include economic schools of thought like institutional or Marxist economists, as they do not lie at the literal and figurative center of U.S. economic theory and practice. 2. There are a handful of instances where the focus on the “inside” of organizations included their relationship to “external” social context(s), for example, Marxist inspired organizational scholarship and critique (Braverman, 1998; Edwards, 1978, 1979; Marglin, 1974). However, this was neither mainstream



nor common until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Marxist-inspired organizational scholarship continues to be rare indeed, as evidenced by publication dates of the above-cited research. 3. I use interpretive because it is more inclusive. The study of culture and institutions would fall under this moniker. 4. This can be observed in the endogenous citing preferences that characterize economic sociology and its overriding concern with commercial contexts and market behavior(s) (Fourcade-Gourinchas, 2005). 5. These are also referred to as heterogeneous networks.

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Thomas D. Beamish is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include organizations, institutions, and economy; environment and technology; and hazards research. Each of these interests, in turn, reflects his deeper substantive focus on the structuring influence that social institutions and complex/formal/informal organization exerts on interpretation and practice. Through field work in a diverse range of settings—oil fields and the oil industry; commercial construction markets; antiwar protest; and a current NSF-funded study of community response to a federally sponsored biodefense initiative—his research has sought to illuminate the part social expectations play in configuring the intentional rationality of human actors. His publications include a book, Silent Spill: The Organization of an Industrial Crisis (MIT Press, 2002); chapters in edited volumes; and professional journal articles that have appeared in the Journal of Social Problems, the Annual Review of Sociology, and Organization and Environment among others.
