**1. Introduction**

100 Sociological Landscape – Theories, Realities and Trends

Zelizer, V. (2005). Culture and Consumption. In: Smelser, N. J. & Swedberg, R. (Ed.), *The* 

The first problem found when attempting to define the field of economic sociology results directly from the fact of the pre-existing reality of ― both academically consecrated but diverse ― disciplines of sociology and economics. Within this context, we need to, even if only briefly, consider the processes of academic institutionalisation that economics and sociology underwent as from the 19th century, and also the discourses that were predominantly bound up with such processes.

As is known, the term "sociology" may be traced back to the first half of the 19th century and Auguste Comte. The correspondent tradition regarding economy-society relationships attributed the economy the mere role of social subsector within the framework of what has been called a "fundamental epistemological principle of the unity of knowledge, especially of social science" (Zafirovski, 2005: 123), or indeed methodological monism. Economic facts would thus be no more than a variation on social facts, and "economic analysis proper should not be conceived or cultivated apart from the whole of sociological analysis" (idem: 126), even while Comte left unresolved the question corresponding to which extent it is acceptable to consider the existence of "internal subdivisions" to sociology. Within this context, mention is due to the efforts of among others the Portuguese positivist jurist and sociologist Manuel Emídio Garcia, who postulated that the economic sphere corresponded to a particular variety of social facts he identified, and based upon a biologically inspired analogy, as "facts of vitality and nutrition" (Garcia, 1882: 9 and seq.; Graça, 2005: 114).

In general, and without overlooking the divergences between the different authors, various sociologically minded jurists of this period, generically of a positivist inspiration, followed the trajectory set out by Garcia and ― in accordance with the teachings of Comte ― considered greater or lesser generalities in symmetry with complexity as the fundamental criteria for "classifying" or "internally dividing up" social reality, and hence also sociology. In this ambit, the more general economic facts were supposed to have correspondingly lesser complexity. Furthermore, the "facts of production" within were assumed the base of an ideal "pyramid" thus interrelating their greater generality with lesser complexity in addition to a tighter level of determinism. Simultaneously, the "facts of distribution", whose lesser generality was deemed to correspond to greater complexity, were by contrast accepted as partially the result of deliberate human actions and hence not susceptible to analysis in strictly determinist terms. This is how, shortly after Garcia, in 1891, another Portuguese positivist academic, José Frederico Laranjo proposed that distributive realities

While Say does clearly express the aforementioned inclination (even while not actually carried out) to abandon "political economy" in favour of "social economy", this stems mostly from the fact that, according to this liberal economist, the scope for action, at least relevant action by the public authorities, is significantly restricted and curtailed by the objective general laws driving economic realities that a scientist ("*savant*") should attempt to determine. Within this process, the researcher is officially to dismiss to the greatest possible extent any personal value-based preferences and seek out the "positive facts" and furthermore drawing out knowledge through greater appeal to inductive methodologies than to elaborate speculations and deductions. These, it is stated, would instead tend to primarily reflect the doctrinal biases of people producing them. To this end, Say writes, with the emphatic purpose of demarcating his position from the "Ricardian School" and referring explicitly to Ricardo's *Principles*: "(...) nothing in this book represents what really happens in nature. It is not enough to be based on facts: it is necessary to get within them, to accompany them and incessantly compare the consequences extracted with the effects observed. Political economy, to prove truly useful, ought not to teach, even though through fair reasoning based upon accurate premises, *what necessarily should occur* ["*ce qui doit nécessairement arriver*"]; instead, it must genuinely be able to show how what really occurs is a consequence of another real fact. It should discover the chain that links them and prove, always by observation, the existence of two points in which the chain of reasoning is bind"

With Say, we arrive at what may be summarised as a conception of a thoroughly "positive" economic science and an economy supposed to be completely "disembedded*"* from political issues and fields, the assumption of the absence of political powers being taken as the most pertinent operational hypothesis. However, the presence of the value-based aspects was an unavoidable aspect and a permanent challenge characterising the entire history of economic science throughout the 19th century, although its connection with the predominance of deduction was not always that put forward by Say. In truth, the opposite was actually more common, with value-based judgements usually associated with the prevalence of induction. Hence, while assuming the absence of value-based facets in what is deemed "pure" political economy, within which deductive methods was supposed to tend to prevail ― indeed, especially mathematical deduction, particularly in methods associated with the "marginalist revolution" and its analytical import of models emerging out of physics ― there is furthermore broad recognition of the need for another form of learning, that termed "applied", or "social" political economy: a fairly approximate and roughly inductive field concerned about the realities of the distribution of wealth, hence tangential to theories of justice and therefore necessarily distant from the "positive" sobriety of the models of its "pure" peer. This antinomy is rendered explicit in the work of Léon Walras but it really underpins the works of several other authors (see, among others, Zafirovski 1999: 2-9;

While Walras distinguishes between and openly opposes that understood as "pure political economy" ― positive and seeking to grasp the realities to production ― and "social economy" ― normative and concerned about distribution and general issues of justice ― other authors take very similar lines but incorporate the category of sociology and, on occasion, even that of economic sociology. The way this is done, however, fluctuates significantly from case to case. Furthermore, the acceptance of the "pure economy" label by the economic science has also proven far from consensual, with William Stanley Jevons by

(Say, 1972: 36).

Ingham 1996; Velthuis 1999; Graça 2005).

were endowed with a considerable degree of "elasticity" and considered intrinsically indeterminate and susceptible to the application of conscious and voluntary human deliberation. According to this same line of reasoning, within the scope of which "political economy" and "economic sociology" are to be taken as synonymous expressions, Laranjo meanwhile invokes another renowned figure, while significantly from beyond the usual pantheon of sociologists and rather an economist, John Stuart Mill (cf. Laranjo, 1997: 5-12; Graça, 2005: 114).

Coming out of the same mental framework, José Marnoco e Sousa (1902: 390), to a large extent based upon theses presented by his predecessors, defended how 1) economics is a science, 2) it is the first of all the social sciences as the most generalised variety of sociology, given 3) its field corresponds to the most general facts and with the greatest and deepest influence on the life of societies. Sousa furthermore recognises that societies are overly complex realities to be subject to study by organic metaphors since they correspond more appropriately to a mental device he designates as a "super-organicism", which leads him into a consideration of aspects referred to nowadays as "reflexivity" and "performativity". Hence, through the capacity for self-consciousness, human beings are indefinitely capable of changing their conducts, and therefore the notion of social law is problematic in essence, particularly as the very scientific activity (whether under the form of perpetuation and reproduction or of criticism and opposition) exerts influence over the surrounding social reality of which the processes of knowledge form part. Within this context, Sousa affirms he subscribes to the basic ideas defended by Guillaume de Greef, which he considers a mitigated version of "historical materialism": the fundamental primacy of the weighting of economic factors in social evolution, while taking in due consideration the intrinsically (and necessarily) free character of human action.

While subscribing to the ideas of de Greef, and partially also those of Karl Kautsky, Sousa nevertheless demarcates his position significantly from the one proposed by René Worms, in favour of founding a "social economy" that would merge the contributions made by the economic science and sociology. The reasoning behind this is significant as it reveals the importance he attributes to hierarchy and precedence in interdisciplinary relationships: "The first interpretation that appeared was that social economy represents a synthesis of political economy and sociology. This idea however leaves much to be desired, especially as sociology is the whole of what economics is a part and the notion of a synthesis of a whole and simultaneously one of its parts is a notion that simply doesn't make sense" (Sousa, 1997: 20; see also Graça, 2005: 114; 2008a: 118).

The discussion is interesting from the point of view of both the content and the terminology chosen. In fact, the expression "social economy" ("*économie sociale*") is also proposed, and perhaps for the first time ever, by Jean-Baptiste Say in 1828, in the ninth section of his "Histoire Abregée de l'Économie Politique", part of his monumental *Cours Complet d'Économie Politique Practique* (1966), in which he explicitly defends how the economy and the polity correspond to differing spheres of existence and hence the economic science would benefit from abandoning its traditional designation of "political economy" and openly adopting the expression "social economy". Despite admonishing Adam Smith for incorrectly utilising the terminology, Say does not however make up his own mind as to adopt the term deemed appropriate.

were endowed with a considerable degree of "elasticity" and considered intrinsically indeterminate and susceptible to the application of conscious and voluntary human deliberation. According to this same line of reasoning, within the scope of which "political economy" and "economic sociology" are to be taken as synonymous expressions, Laranjo meanwhile invokes another renowned figure, while significantly from beyond the usual pantheon of sociologists and rather an economist, John Stuart Mill (cf. Laranjo, 1997: 5-12;

Coming out of the same mental framework, José Marnoco e Sousa (1902: 390), to a large extent based upon theses presented by his predecessors, defended how 1) economics is a science, 2) it is the first of all the social sciences as the most generalised variety of sociology, given 3) its field corresponds to the most general facts and with the greatest and deepest influence on the life of societies. Sousa furthermore recognises that societies are overly complex realities to be subject to study by organic metaphors since they correspond more appropriately to a mental device he designates as a "super-organicism", which leads him into a consideration of aspects referred to nowadays as "reflexivity" and "performativity". Hence, through the capacity for self-consciousness, human beings are indefinitely capable of changing their conducts, and therefore the notion of social law is problematic in essence, particularly as the very scientific activity (whether under the form of perpetuation and reproduction or of criticism and opposition) exerts influence over the surrounding social reality of which the processes of knowledge form part. Within this context, Sousa affirms he subscribes to the basic ideas defended by Guillaume de Greef, which he considers a mitigated version of "historical materialism": the fundamental primacy of the weighting of economic factors in social evolution, while taking in due consideration the intrinsically (and

While subscribing to the ideas of de Greef, and partially also those of Karl Kautsky, Sousa nevertheless demarcates his position significantly from the one proposed by René Worms, in favour of founding a "social economy" that would merge the contributions made by the economic science and sociology. The reasoning behind this is significant as it reveals the importance he attributes to hierarchy and precedence in interdisciplinary relationships: "The first interpretation that appeared was that social economy represents a synthesis of political economy and sociology. This idea however leaves much to be desired, especially as sociology is the whole of what economics is a part and the notion of a synthesis of a whole and simultaneously one of its parts is a notion that simply doesn't make sense" (Sousa, 1997:

The discussion is interesting from the point of view of both the content and the terminology chosen. In fact, the expression "social economy" ("*économie sociale*") is also proposed, and perhaps for the first time ever, by Jean-Baptiste Say in 1828, in the ninth section of his "Histoire Abregée de l'Économie Politique", part of his monumental *Cours Complet d'Économie Politique Practique* (1966), in which he explicitly defends how the economy and the polity correspond to differing spheres of existence and hence the economic science would benefit from abandoning its traditional designation of "political economy" and openly adopting the expression "social economy". Despite admonishing Adam Smith for incorrectly utilising the terminology, Say does not however make up his own mind as to

Graça, 2005: 114).

necessarily) free character of human action.

20; see also Graça, 2005: 114; 2008a: 118).

adopt the term deemed appropriate.

While Say does clearly express the aforementioned inclination (even while not actually carried out) to abandon "political economy" in favour of "social economy", this stems mostly from the fact that, according to this liberal economist, the scope for action, at least relevant action by the public authorities, is significantly restricted and curtailed by the objective general laws driving economic realities that a scientist ("*savant*") should attempt to determine. Within this process, the researcher is officially to dismiss to the greatest possible extent any personal value-based preferences and seek out the "positive facts" and furthermore drawing out knowledge through greater appeal to inductive methodologies than to elaborate speculations and deductions. These, it is stated, would instead tend to primarily reflect the doctrinal biases of people producing them. To this end, Say writes, with the emphatic purpose of demarcating his position from the "Ricardian School" and referring explicitly to Ricardo's *Principles*: "(...) nothing in this book represents what really happens in nature. It is not enough to be based on facts: it is necessary to get within them, to accompany them and incessantly compare the consequences extracted with the effects observed. Political economy, to prove truly useful, ought not to teach, even though through fair reasoning based upon accurate premises, *what necessarily should occur* ["*ce qui doit nécessairement arriver*"]; instead, it must genuinely be able to show how what really occurs is a consequence of another real fact. It should discover the chain that links them and prove, always by observation, the existence of two points in which the chain of reasoning is bind" (Say, 1972: 36).

With Say, we arrive at what may be summarised as a conception of a thoroughly "positive" economic science and an economy supposed to be completely "disembedded*"* from political issues and fields, the assumption of the absence of political powers being taken as the most pertinent operational hypothesis. However, the presence of the value-based aspects was an unavoidable aspect and a permanent challenge characterising the entire history of economic science throughout the 19th century, although its connection with the predominance of deduction was not always that put forward by Say. In truth, the opposite was actually more common, with value-based judgements usually associated with the prevalence of induction. Hence, while assuming the absence of value-based facets in what is deemed "pure" political economy, within which deductive methods was supposed to tend to prevail ― indeed, especially mathematical deduction, particularly in methods associated with the "marginalist revolution" and its analytical import of models emerging out of physics ― there is furthermore broad recognition of the need for another form of learning, that termed "applied", or "social" political economy: a fairly approximate and roughly inductive field concerned about the realities of the distribution of wealth, hence tangential to theories of justice and therefore necessarily distant from the "positive" sobriety of the models of its "pure" peer. This antinomy is rendered explicit in the work of Léon Walras but it really underpins the works of several other authors (see, among others, Zafirovski 1999: 2-9; Ingham 1996; Velthuis 1999; Graça 2005).

While Walras distinguishes between and openly opposes that understood as "pure political economy" ― positive and seeking to grasp the realities to production ― and "social economy" ― normative and concerned about distribution and general issues of justice ― other authors take very similar lines but incorporate the category of sociology and, on occasion, even that of economic sociology. The way this is done, however, fluctuates significantly from case to case. Furthermore, the acceptance of the "pure economy" label by the economic science has also proven far from consensual, with William Stanley Jevons by

influence is Vilfredo Pareto's, attention turned away from the intimate motivations, once assumed the intrinsic difficulty or impossibility of their exact knowledge, and is primarily called upon to the study of the alleged regularities of the practices (fundamentally determined by the "residues"), alongside the immense variability and essentially countless vastness of feasible rationalisations and justifications (the renowned volatility of "derivations"). In partially adopting the ideas of Weber and partially those of Pareto, years later, Joseph Schumpeter, in a somewhat confused jumble of issues supposedly integral to the economic sciences, lists its sectors as, beyond strict "economic analysis": history, statistics, theory, sociology, politics and applied economics (cf. Schumpeter, 1986: 12-24). In numerous other contexts, nevertheless, the same Schumpeter made a point of highlighting the rigorous specificity and intrinsic conceptual nobility of "analysis" (thus, the "pure economy" of Walras) as opposed to the remaining elements, more or less openly referred to

In whatever the case, we are left with: a) an aspect of existence susceptible to the rigorous application of "logic" or of "instrumental rationality" (or "formal rationality"), broadly boiling down to the reasonings of the then mainstream economics and assumed to relate to the core set of defining features of life in society as regards the production of the means of material existence, and for this reason the subject of economic science; b) another aspect alongside or "behind" the above, and recognisably influencing it inasmuch they intermingle, reporting on everything else in human existence, which constitutes a terrain of "non-logic", in accordance with the "ultimate values" and the impossibility of their rational determination, or need for their irrational determination, along with the chain of

Some of the more prominent divergences from this general framework deserve separate mention. Above all, the tradition harking back to the thinker who, after Comte, became the most important figure in French sociology, Émile Durkheim, who clearly assumed economic facts to be a variety of social facts and, in this sense, "moral facts". This characteristic drove the emergence of an economic school distinct to mainstream economics (Simiand, Mauss, Halbwachs), precisely out of the consideration of "value-based" and "institutional" factors within the scope of strict economic analysis, which is, furthermore, explicitly considered to fall within the scope of sociology (cf. Simiand 2006). However, the fact of Émile Durkheim having proceeded with a definition of social facts itself based upon at least formally "positivist" foundations ― that is, based upon the well-known criteria of exteriority, coercion and generality ― raised diverse epistemological problems hard to cope with and likely hindered the development of a reflection on economic realities radically different

Another important approach that undoubtedly deserves mention, serving as precursor of economic sociology, is the renowned 19th century "historical school": German, indeed, but not exclusively. A leading role was played by Gustav Schmoller, who, within the context of an attempt to summarise or render compatible the economic traditions of value-cost and value-utility, advancing in a manner broadly analogous with Alfred Marshall at around the same time ― utility or demand recognised as crucial factors in the "short term" or "conjuncture", with production costs thus determining "long term" or "structure" ― furthermore added the notion that the most decisive stabilising factor in the elements of an economy as a whole would be its moral values, enacted in a series of institutions under the

leftovers…

"institutional" factors necessarily involved.

from the outputs of mainstream economics.

these years suggesting precisely the adoption of *"economics"* instead. In fact, Walras' and Jevons' tendency to imitate physics-based models, even if having prevailed, ran notoriously counter to the explicit recommendations of Alfred Marshall, who indeed perceived biology as the true "Mecca" for progress in the economic science (cf. Marshall, 1907 preface, in 1964: XII; in contrast, cf. Walras, 1952: 103; see also Mirowski, 1989). Any return to the biologysourced models of Marshall would in any case mean the likely adoption of an "organic" model that, as we have seen, left Sousa deeply dissatisfied. Be as it may, such models were never actually widely adopted, with economic science indeed leaning more and more to the adoption of physics models.

Both the "pure" economy of Walras and the *economics* proper, suggested by Jevons, fundamentally replicate mental schemes taken from physics; and assuming "rational", broadly utilitarian agents, they serve mostly to portray a particular virtual reality, since factual reality mostly proves far different to these schemes. This happens for multiple reasons which include, among others, the very existence in human action of a factor of "ought-to-be", simultaneously of moral *conditioning* and of moral *background*, which is in itself enough for factual reality to significantly diverge from these theoretical frameworks. How then might that "something else" from which life in society emerges be captured by scientific approaches? Based upon the analytical framework of Jevons, for example, Philip Wicksteed openly defends that economics is and ought to be nothing more than "the handmaid of sociology" due to the simple fact the latter refers to a far broader scope (Zafirovski, 2005: 123). This is not intended to mean, however, any challenge to the relevance of the analytical framework of marginalist *economics* just so long as the latter is considered a simple economic science. By contrast, in Walras we encounter rather than a proposal to integrate *economics* into a broader reaching sociology, the project of a separate subject, a "social economy" able in some way to understand the divergence of economic realities from the schemes and models of "pure economy".

However, we should also highlight that, while in Walras and in Marshall this distance of facts from theory is considered not equivalent to a loss of dignity of those, given they assume the human condition as an issue for morality and liberty, mainstream economics later proceeded to consider the moral facets of human action as a kind of "background noise", a lapse of "rationality" or "logic", one that might indeed prove an important core of problems from the "praxeology" perspective on the same human action (cf. Zafirovski, 2005: 132) but would nevertheless render exact science on this field impossible. In summary, to the extent that economic realities are influenced by a whole host of factors beyond the mere practical translation of the profound inclinations of a "rational actor", this is ipso facto represented as recognition of irrationality. Hence, the sociology of such themes should remain aware of its engagement in a study of the "non-logical", aiming at capturing the absurd, the paradoxical, and more broadly that which may only seek out some "logic" other than the conscious justifications of the respective protagonists.

The formulations vary considerably from author to author across this same terrain. In one extreme lies the group of arguments typical among others of Max Weber, recognising the presence of both affective and traditional aspects as well as those associated with the famous "value-oriented rationality" or "substantive rationality", and in every case henceforth assuming the importance of "comprehension", the researcher aiming at grasping the meaning attributed by actors to their practices. In the other extremity the prevailing

these years suggesting precisely the adoption of *"economics"* instead. In fact, Walras' and Jevons' tendency to imitate physics-based models, even if having prevailed, ran notoriously counter to the explicit recommendations of Alfred Marshall, who indeed perceived biology as the true "Mecca" for progress in the economic science (cf. Marshall, 1907 preface, in 1964: XII; in contrast, cf. Walras, 1952: 103; see also Mirowski, 1989). Any return to the biologysourced models of Marshall would in any case mean the likely adoption of an "organic" model that, as we have seen, left Sousa deeply dissatisfied. Be as it may, such models were never actually widely adopted, with economic science indeed leaning more and more to the

Both the "pure" economy of Walras and the *economics* proper, suggested by Jevons, fundamentally replicate mental schemes taken from physics; and assuming "rational", broadly utilitarian agents, they serve mostly to portray a particular virtual reality, since factual reality mostly proves far different to these schemes. This happens for multiple reasons which include, among others, the very existence in human action of a factor of "ought-to-be", simultaneously of moral *conditioning* and of moral *background*, which is in itself enough for factual reality to significantly diverge from these theoretical frameworks. How then might that "something else" from which life in society emerges be captured by scientific approaches? Based upon the analytical framework of Jevons, for example, Philip Wicksteed openly defends that economics is and ought to be nothing more than "the handmaid of sociology" due to the simple fact the latter refers to a far broader scope (Zafirovski, 2005: 123). This is not intended to mean, however, any challenge to the relevance of the analytical framework of marginalist *economics* just so long as the latter is considered a simple economic science. By contrast, in Walras we encounter rather than a proposal to integrate *economics* into a broader reaching sociology, the project of a separate subject, a "social economy" able in some way to understand the divergence of economic

However, we should also highlight that, while in Walras and in Marshall this distance of facts from theory is considered not equivalent to a loss of dignity of those, given they assume the human condition as an issue for morality and liberty, mainstream economics later proceeded to consider the moral facets of human action as a kind of "background noise", a lapse of "rationality" or "logic", one that might indeed prove an important core of problems from the "praxeology" perspective on the same human action (cf. Zafirovski, 2005: 132) but would nevertheless render exact science on this field impossible. In summary, to the extent that economic realities are influenced by a whole host of factors beyond the mere practical translation of the profound inclinations of a "rational actor", this is ipso facto represented as recognition of irrationality. Hence, the sociology of such themes should remain aware of its engagement in a study of the "non-logical", aiming at capturing the absurd, the paradoxical, and more broadly that which may only seek out some "logic" other

The formulations vary considerably from author to author across this same terrain. In one extreme lies the group of arguments typical among others of Max Weber, recognising the presence of both affective and traditional aspects as well as those associated with the famous "value-oriented rationality" or "substantive rationality", and in every case henceforth assuming the importance of "comprehension", the researcher aiming at grasping the meaning attributed by actors to their practices. In the other extremity the prevailing

adoption of physics models.

realities from the schemes and models of "pure economy".

than the conscious justifications of the respective protagonists.

influence is Vilfredo Pareto's, attention turned away from the intimate motivations, once assumed the intrinsic difficulty or impossibility of their exact knowledge, and is primarily called upon to the study of the alleged regularities of the practices (fundamentally determined by the "residues"), alongside the immense variability and essentially countless vastness of feasible rationalisations and justifications (the renowned volatility of "derivations"). In partially adopting the ideas of Weber and partially those of Pareto, years later, Joseph Schumpeter, in a somewhat confused jumble of issues supposedly integral to the economic sciences, lists its sectors as, beyond strict "economic analysis": history, statistics, theory, sociology, politics and applied economics (cf. Schumpeter, 1986: 12-24). In numerous other contexts, nevertheless, the same Schumpeter made a point of highlighting the rigorous specificity and intrinsic conceptual nobility of "analysis" (thus, the "pure economy" of Walras) as opposed to the remaining elements, more or less openly referred to leftovers…

In whatever the case, we are left with: a) an aspect of existence susceptible to the rigorous application of "logic" or of "instrumental rationality" (or "formal rationality"), broadly boiling down to the reasonings of the then mainstream economics and assumed to relate to the core set of defining features of life in society as regards the production of the means of material existence, and for this reason the subject of economic science; b) another aspect alongside or "behind" the above, and recognisably influencing it inasmuch they intermingle, reporting on everything else in human existence, which constitutes a terrain of "non-logic", in accordance with the "ultimate values" and the impossibility of their rational determination, or need for their irrational determination, along with the chain of "institutional" factors necessarily involved.

Some of the more prominent divergences from this general framework deserve separate mention. Above all, the tradition harking back to the thinker who, after Comte, became the most important figure in French sociology, Émile Durkheim, who clearly assumed economic facts to be a variety of social facts and, in this sense, "moral facts". This characteristic drove the emergence of an economic school distinct to mainstream economics (Simiand, Mauss, Halbwachs), precisely out of the consideration of "value-based" and "institutional" factors within the scope of strict economic analysis, which is, furthermore, explicitly considered to fall within the scope of sociology (cf. Simiand 2006). However, the fact of Émile Durkheim having proceeded with a definition of social facts itself based upon at least formally "positivist" foundations ― that is, based upon the well-known criteria of exteriority, coercion and generality ― raised diverse epistemological problems hard to cope with and likely hindered the development of a reflection on economic realities radically different from the outputs of mainstream economics.

Another important approach that undoubtedly deserves mention, serving as precursor of economic sociology, is the renowned 19th century "historical school": German, indeed, but not exclusively. A leading role was played by Gustav Schmoller, who, within the context of an attempt to summarise or render compatible the economic traditions of value-cost and value-utility, advancing in a manner broadly analogous with Alfred Marshall at around the same time ― utility or demand recognised as crucial factors in the "short term" or "conjuncture", with production costs thus determining "long term" or "structure" ― furthermore added the notion that the most decisive stabilising factor in the elements of an economy as a whole would be its moral values, enacted in a series of institutions under the

From this proposed subject division, we may retain certain aspects of particular importance to our theme. Firstly, the criteria enabling the identification and separation of sociology from the other subject fields, especially economics, is essentially subjective and bound up with an analytic perspective. This is not about portraying the economy as a separate or distinct sphere of society as a whole, or some "department of business" corresponding to a differentiated and specific range of facts and that would be, in these terms, the object of a different subject (Parsons, 1934: 530). What characterises economics is, Parsons counterargues, a particular approach assuming: 1) agents with a multiplicity of goals and 2) facing a scarcity of resources, 3) striving to optimise the results obtained within generic restrictions, for which he postulates 4) decreasing marginal productivity of factors of production, and 5) for consumers, decreasing marginal utility of goods, within the general framework of 6) possibilities of reciprocal substitution both of production factors and final goods, hence

This was, in sum, the definition of economic science proposed around that time by Lionel Robbins, to which Parsons broadly subscribed while nevertheless pointing out (1934: 344) this was an analytical device and nothing more and should not be assumed as a means of globally approaching and understanding effective realities. As regards factual reality, *la verità effettuale della cosa*, other recognisable factors enter the stage, in particular value orientations, the aforementioned ultimate ends, that orient and provide meaning and

Regarding those researchers considered economists, characterised by a "historicist" or "institutionalist" approach ― taking into consideration cultural facets, the diversity of circumstances and the complexity of economic facts, and so refusing for these very reasons to adopt the analytical framework that had become predominant in economics, the "marginalist" theoretical scheme according to the writings of the aforementioned Lionel Robbins ― as is basically the case with Schmoller, Sombart and Veblen, Parsons maintains that such authors assume deficient analytical perspectives and therefore tend to fall into the trap of what he termed the "fallacy of misplaced concreteness" (Parsons, 1935a: 439). Unquestionably, the "marginalist" framework does not correspond to factuality. That is clear, but does not confute it as the most appropriate approach for economic science. Striving to set it aside, in the name of realism and a broader scope of action, amounts to "economic imperialism", or an "encyclopedic economics" ― meaning the intent to an ever more wide reaching economic science ― which Parsons explicitly condemns (1932: 337; 1934: 522-4, 532; 1935b: 666). Beyond the theoretical failures and excessive "inductivism", Schmoller and Sombart are also accused of excessive "idealistic" inclinations, that is, overvaluing unique features of the realities studied and their *Geist* component, as simultaneously, and in a contradictory fashion, Parsons maintains that they over-emphasise the theoretical importance of recognisably objective circumstances, the "ultimate conditions", and at the cost of the cultural values, or "ultimate ends" (1928: 643–6; 1932: 333, 344; 1934: 531; 1935a: 423, 446 and seq.; 1935b: 656–7, 661–5; 1961: Part III, Ch. XIII; on this

Notwithstanding the fact that he rejects such approaches seated within official economic science but contrary to its mainstream, Parsons indeed reprocesses and utilises a good proportion of the theoretical legacy they provide, albeit on condition of committing it to a different subject field, rendering unto Cesar that which is Cesar's in the field of recognising

themselves represent the appropriate object for sociological scientific analysis.

tradeoffs.

issue see also Graça, 2008b: 472-6).

form of social ethic or "ethicality". This social ethic, or the values associated, proves crucial in particular in terms of the stabilisation effect on consumer preferences, that is, demand. Schmoller also highlights aspects that economic sociology would later take up, such as the general importance of traditions in economic life or the supposed crucial role played by the entrepreneur, with his celebrated "teleological" virtues: leadership, orientation, unification, regeneration, etc. (cf. Schmoller, 1905-08 III: 277-9, 349, 371-2; see also Koslowski, 1995; Krabbe, 1996: 22, 63–4; Nau, 2000: 511-12; Graça, 2008b: 473 and seq.).

The theoretical writings of Schmoller, occurring in a context of concern over Socialist trends within the academic world corresponding to the Prussian state and the "Wilhelmine" Germany of the Second Empire, influenced the ideas later developed by disciples such as Werner Sombart. However, Schmoller had also clear and explicitly recognised repercussions on the works of Émile Durkheim, and correspondingly on French sociology (cf. Giddens, 1976), and of Thorstein Veblen and what is termed North American "institutionalism" (cf. Veblen 1990). As with the "institutionalist" tradition, Schmoller doubts the universal validity of economic categories and favours an approach of an "inductivist" type, which accordingly (as with Werner Sombart, but running counter to Max Weber) leans to the rejection of a considerable part of mainstream neoclassical processes and thus tends to attract the hostility of its followers. Within the work of Schmoller there is a compound emphasis in the specificity of each event and in contrast to aspects easily includable into laws and general trends, as well as a purpose at determining the greater or lesser weighting of materially conditioning factors, in particular the economic, but also the cultural factor in the life of societies. Correspondingly, his work may be approached as an interface between the fields of sociology, historiography and economics.
