Readings ST3 week 6
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic embeddedness.
Embeddedness: behavior and institutions are constrained by ongoing socials relations, you cannot
explain them as independent.
Oversocialized conception of human action (sociology) = a conception of people as overwhelmingly
sensitive to the opinions of others and hence obedient to the dictates of consensually developed
systems of norms and values, internalized through socialization, so that obedience is not perceived as
a burden. Adhering slavishly to a script written for them by the particular intersection of social
categories that they happen to occupy.
Undersocialized conception of human action (classical and neoclassical economics) = a utilitarian
tradition in which they disallow any impact of social structure and social relations on production,
distribution, or consumption. Actors behave/decide as atoms outside a social context. Therefore, the
fact that actors may have social relations with one another has been treated, if at all, as a frictional
drag that impedes competitive markets (wrijvingsweerstand die competitie belemmert).
But Adam Smith recognized that the social atomization is a prerequisite to perfect competition.
Other comments by economists on social influences: processes in which actors acquire customs,
habits, or norms that are followed mechanically and automatically, irrespective of their bearing on
rational choice.
Commonality of oversocialized and undersocialized views both have in common a conception of
action and decision carried out by atomized actors.
- Undersocialized atomization results from narrow utilitarian pursuit of self-interest
- Oversocialized atomization results from behavioral patterns that have been internalized
and ongoing social relations
When modern economists do attempt to take account of social influences, they typically represent
them in the oversocialized manner. But these oversocialized conceptions of how society influences
individual behavior are rather mechanical: once we know the individual’s social class or labor market
sector, everything else in behavior is automatic, since they are so well socialized. Even when
economists do take social relationships seriously, they invariable abstract away from the history of
relations and their position with respect to other relations (structural embeddedness). The
interpersonal ties described in their arguments are extremely stylized, average, ‘typical’.
To analyze human action, one should avoid the atomization implicit in the theoretical extremes of
under- and oversocialized conceptions. Action is instead embedded in concrete, ongoing systems of
social relations.
How come that daily economic life is not riddled with mistrust and malfeasance? Two explanations:
- Undersocialized conception social institutions and arrangements previously thought to be
the adventitious result of legal, historical, social, or political forces are better viewed as the
efficient solution to certain economic problems.
o E.g.: malfeasance is averted because institutional arrangements make it too costly to
engage in, so it discourages malfeasance.
- Oversocialized conception trust is explained by generalized morality: societies in their
evolution have developed implicit agreements to certain kinds of regard for others,
, agreements which are essential to the survival of the society or at least contribute greatly to
the efficiency of its workings
- Embeddedness argument stresses the role of concrete personal relations and structures
of such relations in generating trust and discouraging malfeasance. We settle for generalized
information when nothing better is available, but ordinarily week seek better information,
like information from one’s own past dealings with that person.
Standard economic analysis neglects the identity and past relations of individual transactors, but
rational individuals know better, relying on their knowledge of these relations.
Social relations, rather than institutional arrangements or generalized morality, are mainly
responsible for the production of trust in economic life. BUT:
- The embeddedness position is less sweeping than either alternative argument, since
networks of social relations penetrate irregularly and in differing degrees in different sectors
of economic life, thus allowing for what we already know: distrust, opportunism, and
disorder are by no means absent.
- Social relations may provide occasion and means for malfeasance and conflict on a scale
larger than in their absence trust engendered by personal relations presents enhanced
opportunity for malfeasance, force and fraud are most efficiently pursued by teams and the
teams requires a level of internal trust, the extent of disorder resulting from force and fraud
depends very much on how the network of social relations is structured
Disorder and malfeasance do of course occur also when social relations are absent. But the level of
malfeasance available in a truly atomized social situation is fairly low.
The embeddedness approach to the problem of trust and order in economic life threads its way
between the oversocialized approach of generalized morality and the undersocialized one of
impersonal, institutional arrangements by following and analyzing concrete patterns of social
relations.
Lamont, M. (2017). Prisms of inequality: moral boundaries, exclusion
and academic evaluation.
Prisms of inequality: moral boundaries, exclusion and academic evaluation
Examining moral boundaries is essential if we are to gain a better understanding of social inclusion
and recognition. Everyone gains when a society broadens cultural membership to the largest
number, and this results in a decline in criminality, political disengagement, radicalization and
anomie.
Definitions of worth are central to the creation of inequality. How societies and institutions value
certain types of moral selves matter enormously for inequality, and yet these scripts are rarely
factored into current studies aiming to make sense of the growing socio-economic gap. As inequality
increases, these societies are adopting narrow economic definitions of success that are only
reachable by the upper-middle class, the top twenty percent, which sets the majority on the path of
disaffection and failure.
Part 1: moral boundaries
Symbolic boundaries = distinctions that groups create between one another.
Social boundaries = the divisions between groups in the distribution of material resources as they
manifest themselves in demographic patterns such as spatial and job segregation, homophily, and
intermarriage.
