Economics Culture And Social Theory

. . . the book is excellent in setting out and explaining a fundamental critique of economics one moreover that has been missed by most other current critics of the field. Making this case is an achievement. Hopefully, it will have a greater impact than its author probably expects. Journal of Cultural Economics Economics evolved by perfecting the taking of culture out of its reductionist and virtual world. But culture has recently been reintroduced, both as a sphere of application for an otherwise unchanging methodology and as a weak form of acknowledging that the economic alone is inadequate as the basis even for explaining the economy. This volume is an essential critical starting point for understanding the changing relationship between economics and culture and in offering a more satisfactory and stable union between the two. Ben Fine, University of London, UK Economics, Culture and Social Theory examines how culture has been neglected in economic theorising and considers how economics could benefit by incorporating ideas from social and cultural theory. Orthodox economics has prompted a long line of cultural criticism that goes back to the origins of economic theory and extends to recent debates surrounding postmodernism. William A. Jackson discusses the cultural critique of economics, identifies the main arguments, and assesses their implications. Among the topics covered are relativism and realism, idealism and materialism, agency and structure, hermeneutics, semiotics, and cultural evolution. Drawing from varied literatures, notably social and cultural theory, the book stresses the importance of culture for economic behaviour and looks at the prospects for a renewed and culturally informed economics. The book will be invaluable to heterodox economists and to anyone interested in the links between culture and the economy. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, arguing against the isolation of economics, and will therefore hold wide appeal for social scientists working in related fields, as well as for economists specialising in cultural economics and economic methodology.

David Hamilton has advanced heterodox economics by replacing intellectual concepts from orthodox economics that hinder us with concepts that help us. This book brings together the essential works of David Hamilton over a fifty year period.

Consumption has become one of the leading topics across the social sciences and vocational disciplines such as marketing and business studies. In this comprehensively updated and revised new edition, traditional approaches as well as the most recent literature are fully addressed and incorporated, with wide reference to theoretical and empirical work. Fine's refreshing and authoritative text includes a critical examination of such themes as: * economics imperialism and globalization * the world of commodities * systems of provision and culture * the consumer society * public consumption. This book presents an updated analysis of the cluttered landscape of studies of consumption that will make it required reading for students from a wide range of backgrounds including political economy, history and social science courses generally.

Market Society provides an original and accessible review of changing conceptions of the market in modern social thought. The book considers markets as social institutions rather than simply formal models, arguing that modern ideas of the market are based on critical notions of social order, social action and social relations. Examining a range of perspectives on the market from across different social science disciplines, Market Society surveys a complex field of ideas in a clear and comprehensive manner. In this way it seeks to extend economic sociology beyond a critique of mainstream economics, and to engage more broadly with social, political and cultural theory. The book explores historical approaches to the emergence of a modern market society, as well as major approaches to the market within modern economic theory and sociology. It addresses key arguments in economic sociology and anthropology, the relation between markets and states, and critical and cultural theories of market rationality. It concludes with a discussion of markets and culture in a late modern context. This wide-ranging text will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology, economic theory and history, politics, social and political theory, anthropology and cultural studies.

This important book places culture back at the centre of debates in development studies. It introduces new ways of conceptualizing culture in relation to development by linking development studies to cultural studies, studies of social movements, religion and the notion of 'social suffering'. The author expertly argues that in the current world crises it is necessary to recover a more holistic vision of development that creates a vocabulary linking more technical (and predominantly economic) aspects of development with more humanistic and ecological goals. Any conception of post-capitalist society, he argues, requires cultural, as well as economic and political, dimensions.

In an increasingly globalised world, economic and cultural imperatives can be seen as two of the most powerful forces shaping human behaviour. This book considers the relationship between economics and culture both as areas of intellectual discourse, and as systems of societal organisation. Adopting a broad definition of culture, it explores the economic dimensions of culture, and the cultural context of economics. The book is built on a foundation of value theory, developing the twin notions of economic and cultural value as underlying principles for integrating the two fields. Ideas of cultural capital and sustainability are discussed, especially as means of analysing the particular problems of cultural heritage, drawing parallels with the treatment of natural capital in ecological economics. The book goes on to discuss the economics of creativity in the production of cultural goods and services; culture in economic development; the cultural industries; and cultural policy.

Aaron Wildavsky, along with Mary Douglas, identified what they called grid-group theory. Wildavsky began calling this "cultural theory," and applied it to an astounding array of subjects. The essays in this volume exemplify the theory's potential contributions to three seemingly disparate, but related, areas: the social construction of meaning, normative/analytic political philosophy, and a theory of rational choices. This book is the first in a series of Aaron Wildavsky's collected writings being published posthumously by Transaction. Wildavsky selected, sequenced, and grouped all but three of the essays included in Culture and Social Theory prior to his death. Some are presented here for the first time. Wildavsky's cultural theory provides ways to organize and interpret the world. In the first section, he shows how social scientists, particularly economists and sociologists, apply the theory. Wildavsky argues that concepts such as externalities, public goods, altruism, and even risk and rape are tools of rival, ubiquitous cultures engaged in perpetual struggle with one another. The second section deals with cultural theory as a way to interpret the works of normative and analytic political philosophers, including Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill, on competing human objectives. Wildavsky argues that particular types of interaction among a society's cultures are necessary for effective realization of basic concepts such as democracy. In the third section, Wildavsky applies cultural theory in conjunction with instrumental rationality, the former as a theory of preference formation, the latter as a device for realizing preferences efficiently. High-priority objectives, and thus the character of norms and rational action, shift across cultures. The world and its various elements comprise a complex, frequently changing, and thus ambiguous reality, nowhere more so than in the dynamic contours of the United States. For cultural theory, individualistic, hierarchical, and egalitarian interpretations of the world are the only ones capable of forming and sustaining institutions and related patterns of social relations that will support human social groups. Wildavsky's central objective is to strip away the camouflage and to reveal varying domains of social life as fields of cultural competition. Culture and Social Theory will be a necessary addition to the libraries of political scientists, economists, and policymakers, not to mention all those who admire Aaron Wildavsky and his work.

This study offers a comprehensive review of all major classical and contemporary social and economic theories and the way they aid our understanding of work.