On Teasing Out Sociology from Economics

A bstract .   Of the many interesting pieces of information that can be found in Parsons's March 10, 1973 seminar at Brown University, one concerns his relationship to Schumpeter, and it is to this that this brief note is devoted. Parsons and Schumpeter knew each other for some 20 years, and one of the many things that Schumpeter taught Parsons was that one can read the texts of economists for the sociological insights that they contain. In Parsons's formulation from the seminar: "economists must have some sociological ideas."     

Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development: 100 years of development

This article sheds light on the impact of Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development over the last 100?years, and identifies insights from that work that are less well-known, but that have the potential for informing current developments in evolutionary economics. We identify these insights by tracing the development of Schumpeter’s ideas in Theory of Economic Development, which he revised heavily between the first and second German and the English editions. We not only report material lost in the process and developments in Schumpeter’s thinking that can be read off of the revisions, but also indicate how the newfound material can inform and inspire evolutionary economics today.     

Max Weber as an Economist and as a Sociologist

A bstract In this article I first give a picture of Weber as an economist, mainly by focussing on a text which he distributed to his students when he taught economics in the 1890s. From this text it is, for example, clear that Weber was positive to the use of marginal utility theory in theoretical economics, but also felt that this approach was insufficient, by itself, to analyze empirical phenomena. I then outline Weber's work in economic sociology, relying primarily on Economy and Society and its central Chapter 2 ("Sociological Categories of Economic Action"). The differences between the approaches of economic theory and economic sociology, as seen by Weber, are summarized, and an account is given of some of Weber's most suggestive concepts in economic sociology. In the concluding section the question is raised as to when the analyst, according to Weber, should use economic sociology rather than economic theory, and vice versa. Weber's ideas about a broad economic science–what he termed Sozialökonomik or social economics–are also presented.