What is economic sociology?

Studies of how economic structures and exchanges affect society and how society affects economic systems is called economic sociology. Economic sociologists study objects such as the role of religion in the development of economic systems, how the division of work affects social ties and how capitalism and industrialization form the way people live, among other things. It should not be confused with socioeconomics, although it sometimes overlaps between the two fields. Socio -economics generally has a narrower focus than economic sociology and is a study of the social effects of specific economic events, such as the closure of a factory or a shift in consumption rather than extensive institutions. Also, it should not be confused with economic areas that use economic principles to analyze social phenomena, such as the economy of religion, family economy or cultural economy. As new economic sociology, which distinguishes it from earlier work in the 19th and early 20th century, places great emphasis on social doseLEDs and the importance of economic exchanges and their effects on other social relations. It often also emphasizes how economic activities take place in a network of other social ties and relationships, a concept called embeddedness. Significant figures of thinkers in this area include Harrison White and Mark Granovetter, a man whose work on the effects of social ties strength and the spread of information through social networks helped to induce a field.

Many important works of what is now considered an early economic sociology precedes the establishment of sociology as a specialized academic discipline, because the division of social sciences into different areas such as sociology, economics and psychology. Like sociology as a whole, early economic sociology began as a growth of subjects such as philosophy and political economy. Economic sociology is often pDinned as the beginning in the first half of the 19th century, although data from the 18th century, such as Montesquieu, are sometimes considered to be its predecessors. Alexis de Tocqueville is often considered an important pioneer in the field, through works such as democracy in America and Old regime and revolution

Thinker the most prominently associated with the application of sociology to economic systems is Max Weber, who worked at the end of the 19th and very at the beginning of the 20th century. Weber's extremely influential book Protestant ethics and the spirit of capitalism claimed that Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, was an important factor in the rise of capitalism in northern Europe. According to Weber, Protestantism had an important impact on the economic attitude of emphasizing and praising the moral virtue of hard work and productivity in secular, secular occupations. At the same time, the loss of credible, absolute religious authority in the form of the Catholic Church created greater feelings of religious uncertainty that led people to success in the earthlyH things through work and trade as a sign of God's blessing and consent. In Weber's theory, this encouraged productivity, rational own interest and entrepreneurial, creating a more favorable environment for the growth of capitalism.

Karl Marx was an extremely influential figure in economic sociology during the 19th century. Marx's approach to the study of society, now commonly called historical materialism, considered economic factors to be the basis of all social phenomena. In classical Marxist theory, the "production regime" of the company - its technology, productive resources and economic relations - the primary force determining the nature of the nature of this society, including its social, cultural and legal institutions, is the changes in this method of production that control changes in other areas of society. Marx's ideas would have an important impact on a number of prominent economic sociologists of the 20th century, such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcus.

Another major economic sociologist was HerbeRT Spencer, who believed that the nature and structure of society was strongly influenced by the primary means of gaining wealth in society. In what Spencer called "militant" society, wealth was primarily accumulated by force and coercion, usually an elite that controlled the state. In "industrial" companies - with "industrial" used in terms of labor or productivity, rather than referring specifically to production - wealth was obtained primarily through work and voluntary exchange. Spencer believed that companies that were primarily militant encouraged values ​​such as militarism, hierarchiea subordination and more industrial societies evolved towards greater individuality, equality and mutual compassion among people. The scope in which the company is militant or industrial is the spectrum, not the binary division, and Spencer believed that how society has moved to the industrial or more militant regime, its value and institution would evolve in a way,which fits it.