Chapter 32: Economic Sociology

FRANK DOBBIN

Economic sociology Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim sought to understand modernity by comparing precapitalist societies with capitalism. Marx explored the transition from feudalism to capitalism; Weber the capitalist impulse that arose with Protestantism; and Durkheim the rise of capitalism's division of labor. As capitalism was in its infancy, none were certain that modern industrial capitalism would take widely different forms, although Weber described a number of different forms—booty, political, imperialist, colonial, adventure, and fiscal capitalism (Weber 1978:164–67; see also Swedberg 1998:47). I review the growing field of economic sociology and, within it, studies that follow on the work of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim to explain the substantial variation found in economic behavior even in modern settings. While the classic studies of economic sociology sought to understand how emerging capitalism would be different from the system of feudalism, economic sociologists increasingly came to see that modern capitalism could take ...

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