Sociology in China

Social investigation has a history in China that extends into the Ming-Qing dynasties and earlier, in the form of reports by scholar-officials on local conditions. Scholars undertook to provide descriptions of agricultural conditions, farming methods, famines, drought and flooding, the conditions of the poor, banditry, and many other topics of interest to the state or potentially of value to the people. These reports often show great attention to detail and concern for veracity, and they provide important sources of data for contemporary historians. They do not constitute “scientific sociology,” any more than the writings of Mayhew or the findings of Parliamentary commissions constituted a British sociology in the 18th century. They fall in...

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Posted in: CAT_China,China,disciplines,sociology

Skilled synchronized cooperation

One kind of social behavior that is particularly interesting to observe is what we might call "small group skilled cooperation."  This kind of social action arises when --there is a recurring task to be performed by a small defined group of actors;success in the task requires effective performance of specialized actions by members of the group;success in the task requires close coordination in time of the actions of the specialized actors;success in the task requires extensive training of individuals and the group to enhance individual skill and inter-actor coordination.Here is one example --Here is another:These examples come from athletics. But we could also think of examples from other time-sensitive, rapidly unfolding scenes of social coordination: fire fighting, jazz ensembles, urban...

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Posted in: CAT_agency,skill

New contributions to the philosophy of history

I am pleased at the publication this month of a book I've been working on for quite a long time, New Contributions to the Philosophy of History (Methodos Series).  (Here is a link to a digital version of the book on the Springer website.)  The title is self-explanatory. The book is intended to jump-start a new round of conversations within analytic philosophy about the nature of history and historical explanation.  The philosophy of social science and the philosophy of biology have contributed enormously to the progress of research in both these areas, and I believe that new discussions in the philosophy of history can be equally valuable.The book was inspired out of the thought that reflections on history and historical...

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Posted in: CAT_history,history

Intangible services

Neoclassical economics presents a pretty simple theory of the equilibrium price of a manufactured good. This theory also extends to a theory of the wage for skilled and unskilled labor. We postulate production and demand curves, and the equilibrium price is the point where supply equals demand. The supply curve is influenced by factors governing the cost of production and therefore the level of profit created at a given production level and price, and the demand curve is influenced by subjective consumer preferences. An increase in demand for a good pushes up the price, thus triggering more production; and the price falls to a new equilibrium.Wages are affected by this calculation because labor is a factor of production, and demand for labor...

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Posted in: CAT_misc,institutions

Did Rousseau have a sociology?

Political philosophers ask a small number of core questions: for example, what constitutes the moral basis of political authority?  How should the values of individual liberty and community wellbeing be balanced?  And we might imagine that the most insightful political philosophers work on the basis of an astute understanding of the social world.  Political philosophy, we might say, ought to be grounded in a good empirical understanding of how society works.  As Rousseau himself puts a similar point in the opening pages of "Considerations on the Government of Poland":Unless you are thoroughly familiar with the nation for which you are working, the labour done on its behalf, however excellent in theory, is bound to prove...

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Posted in: CAT_moraltheory,France,Rousseau

Race and racism

Race has been a fundamental fact in American society for centuries, since the sixteenth century with the arrival of African slaves.  And many would observe that racism has been a part of that history from beginning to end.  These are distinct statements; it is possible for race to be a factor, without racism being present.  But our history does not suggest this separation.  Instead, the United States has embodied a pretty deep version of racial awareness, extending back to the period of slavery and its aftermath, and it continues to embody behaviors, attitudes, and outcomes that are best described as racist.So what do we mean when we say that a society contains a substrate of racism? Can we observe and measure the social...

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Posted in: CAT_policy,CAT_power,race

Proto-industrialization

The concept of proto-industrialization became an influential one in economic history in the 1970s and 1980s. The term refers to a system of rural manufacture that was intermediate between autarchic feudal production and modern urban factory production. Variously described as rural manufacturing, domestic manufacture, cottage industry, and a "putting-out" system, it was a dispersed system of production that used traditional methods of production and extensive low-paid rural labor to produce goods for the market, both domestic and international. Unlike modern capitalist manufacturing, proto-industrialization did not depend on rising labor productivity as a source of higher profits; instead, merchants increased the scale of their businesses by...

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Posted in: CAT_history,economic development,materialism

System changes in healthcare

One of the largest and most interesting processes of change going on in the United States today is the rapid redesign and adjustment of the American healthcare system. A key driver is this spring's passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), but the more fundamental causes are the twin crises we face for access and rising cost for health coverage. Somehow the country needs to find a way of including the whole population within the insured population, and we need to find ways of reducing the rate of growth of aggregate and per capita healthcare expenditures. PPACA is aimed at addressing both crises, and they are urgent.Healthcare in the United States is provided through doctors, physician groups, and hospitals, organized...

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Posted in: CAT_policy,institutions

Goffman's programme

Erving Goffman has had wide influence on American and French sociology, and I find his work highly interesting.  But it is hard to characterize, because it doesn't fit easily into the standard categories of sociological research and theory.  It studies individuals, but it is not individualist.  And it is evidence-based, but it is not empiricist.  In earlier posts I've characterized it as a particular kind of local knowledge, a sort of ethnography for micro-sociology (link, link).  But there is certainly more to say than that.One key part of his work can be described as "close observation of individual behavior in social context."  This has two ends -- individual behavior and social context.  And Goffman wants...

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Posted in: CAT_foundations,Goffman

The public sphere

The current issue of Social Science History is devoted to a series of articles in honor of Charles Tilly (link), around the general theme of the "public sphere" (the theme of the Social Science History Association annual meeting in 2007). Tilly was an active presence in the Social Science History Association, and this issue recognizes Tilly's originality and influence.  The volume contains contributions by several distinguished historical sociologists, including Tilly, Andreas Koller, Craig Calhoun, Andrew Abbott, and Elisabeth Clemens. The concept of the public sphere isn't a subject to which Tilly gave a lot of explicit attention; in fact, there is very little research on the social reality of the public sphere within comparative...

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Posted in: CAT_disciplines,CAT_policy,democracy,social networks