Readings ST3 week 5
Collins, The rational/utilitarian tradition, pp. 121-125
The rational/utilitarian tradition is also called: utilitarianism, exchange theory, rational choice,
rational action or public choice. This tradition is widening again and it is reshaping major parts of our
intellectual landscape.
- It has a lot in common with conflict theory a rather hard-nosed way of looking at
individuals pursuing their own interests, e.g. monetary calculations
- But it also shows differences with conflict theory it doesn’t pay much attention to
stratification or inequality among people. Instead, they describe a world in which people
rationally make exchanges among themselves, so that everything works out for the best
- It tries to show that it is technically possible to explain society by the rational motivations of
individuals (mensen maken doelbewust hun keuze, afweging kosten en baten)
- Micro-macro issue seeing society as put together out of the actions of individuals on the
micro level, and oppose the image of society as a macro entity or structure that exists over
and above individuals.
- There is no culture that determines what people do; individuals are motivated to do
whatever they do, out of their own self-interest
Collins, Bringing the individual back in, pp. 133-144
Sociology had never much to do with utilitarianism.
George Homans criticized Parsons structural-functionalism. This social system is a myth according to
him, a theoretical construct made up out of Parsons’s mind. Individuals are the living, breathing
realities of the social world, and whatever happens must be caused by the motivations of individual
men and women.
Homan’s Law: the more individuals interact with each other, the more they come to like one
another, the more similar they become to one another, and the more they tend to conform to a
common standard. This explains how group pressures emerge from interaction.
- This process of group-formation occurs only if the members of the group start off as equals.
- The reasons that individuals come to like one another, and thus to have influence over each
other, is because they are giving each other something that they find rewarding.
- Why it doesn’t work for unequals: when one person has the power to give orders, it is
distinctly unrewarding to have to interact with him or her, so other people tend to avoid
interacting with someone of this sort.
- Emphasis on processes whereby individuals made exchanges with one another, that’s why
this version is known as ‘exchange theory’
- Micro-macro debate systems never do anything, only human actors do.
Peter Blau began to show that exchanges are found in many different places in social relationships
(market for equal exchanges). Principle of least interests.
Where utilitarian theory was concerned with how the greatest good could be produced for the
greatest number, the exchange theory was mainly concerned with questions of inequality and
power. The most typical exchange analysis of power is that one individual has something to offer that
the other side really needs; and if one cannot reciprocate by giving something of equal value, one
can only keep up the relationship by giving up power to the most resource-laden individual.
, Band-wagon effects/tipping phenomena = periods of coercive stability are punctuated by sudden
breakdowns and jumps of loyalty to the other side.
Exchanges operate according to an underlying principle: if I give something to you, you should give
me something of equal value in return. Homans makes this principle of reciprocity part of his basic
explanatory system; people become angry if reciprocity is violated.
Sociology discovers sexual and marriage markets
- Rating and dating complex attention on who was going out with whom. The structure is a
kind of market, in which the kids were stratified by their resources (physical attractiveness,
personality, social background)
- Idea of marriage market to explain why it is that typically people tend to marry someone
of the same social class
- Some sociologists who identify with the feminist movement have attacked exchange theory
on the grounds that it is antithetical to women. It is argued that exchange is a dehumanizing
way to talk about human beings
- Power comes from unequal resources in exchange
- Back in the days, women were guarding sexuality as a resource that they used for negotiating
marriages. Sexual manners began to loosen up in the 60s because women were acquiring
more economic and occupational resources of their own
Some critics have condemned the exchange theory as a male viewpoint; nevertheless the theory is
rather successful in explaining why there should be such a thing as male and female viewpoints that
exist at particular times in history. The theory shows how cultures emerge out of the kinds of
exchange situations that exist at a particular time; as those exchange structures change, the theory
predicts that the cultures change accordingly.
Hochschild argues that women’s reputation for being more emotional than men is only a crude way
of expressing the truth. Women talk about their emotions more than men, and express emotions
more; but this is because women have had social incentives to try to shape their emotions, to be
rational managers of their emotions. Men, on the other hand, are simply carried along by their
emotions, especially in matters of love, pride, or anger. As long as men are socially dominant, they
have much less incentive to reflectively control their emotions. Having emotions is neither rational
nor irrational in itself; what is ration is the way people live with the emotions they have.
Collins, p. 144-163
Three applications of sociological markets: educational inflation, split labor markets, illegal goods
Economists have developed a mathematical apparatus focusing on prices of goods in relation to each
other, focusing on prices and production, equilibria and economic growth. Sociological market
theories are more concerned with notions of power and the pattern of the social structure that
constitutes the exchanges themselves.
Paradox of education: access to schooling has expanded throughout the 20 th century, but our society
is not becoming more equal. How to explain this?
Market theory to explain stratification: education is like a huge market. What you buy is the
chance to get a job, you buy cultural capital or credentials. The value of educational
credentials is like money. The more money there is in circulation, the less you can buy with
the same amount of money, because increases in the money supply makes prices rise.
Market analysis according to sociologists: a modification of the theory that enables them to
explain how inequality and stratification is created and reproduced.
