Socio-Economics: Toward a New Synthesis.

Socio-economics is the most recent expression of a long-standing disenchantment with neoclassical economics. However, unlike institutional economics, post-Keynesian economics, social economics, or political economy, socio-economics is being advanced predominantly by social scientists outside the umbrella of the economics profession. With sociologist Amitai Etzioni at the forefront, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics is a vibrant and growing assemblage in which organizational theorists, sociologists, management theorists, philosophers, and policy analysts far outnumber economists. The book under review presents the highlights of an international conference held in 1989 at the Harvard School of Business. That fact, however, should not deter potentional readers. This book is substantially more than a typical "proceedings" volume from a professional conference. It stands as a prolegomenon to the synthetic and interdisciplinary approach being fashioned by socio-economists. If the quality of these articles is any indication, the future of socio-economics is quite bright.

The fundamental assertion of socio-economists is that individual choices and market outcomes are deeply embedded in historical, political, social, and cultural patterns. Thus economists' efforts to portray society as resulting from rational individual choices captures only a portion of the causative sequences determining the quality of human existence. Because of this narrowed vision, policies derived from economic theory will consistently fail to recognize and foster the human proclivities for learning, pursuing virtue, and cooperating to collectively reshape social institutions.

Sociology also is subjected to critical scrutiny by socio-economists. Whereas economic man is undersocialized, sociological man is oversocialized. Economic man is a chooser par excellence, but sociological man has no choices to make. Believing the humans are both shaped by and shapers of their social environment, socio-economists seek to develop a synthetic methodology based on reciprocal causation between individual choice and social context.

An ambivalent attitude toward economics appears in most of the articles. On one hand, there are conciliatory gestures of respect for the rigor and elegance of neoclassical models. In that vein, contributors speak of enriching and broadening economics, opening channels of communication between economists and other social scientists, and making the boundaries separating the academic disciplines more fluid.

On the other hand, several contributors seem to have dismissed economics as a lost cause and actually applaud the paucity of neoclassical economists in their ranks. According to Etzioni, the absence of neoclassicists "avoids much sterile debate between loyalists of the two paradigms" |p. 349~.

This love-hate relationship is undoubtedly attributable to recent developments within social science. Although economists' stature may be diminished in the eyes of the general public, their current influence on social research is unprecedented. What began as "economic imperialism," with economists boldly applying their tools to previously uncharted territories of human behavior, has culminated in a dramatic reorientation as the other social sciences increasingly come to resemble economics. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then a large number of social scientists are clearly infatuated with the methodology of economics.

Yet, simultaneously, a counteroffensive is forming which attributes the dominance of economics not to its explanatory powers or predictive abilities, but rather to its suitability for the mathematical modeling that has become the primary criterion by which research is assessed. Etzioni explains that as long as jobs, grants, promotions, tenure, and professional status are tied to demonstrated facility in applying a particular methodology, that approach will dominate regardless of its usefulness in understanding human behavior or solving social problems. This cynicism leads socio-economists to the conclusion that further critiques of neoclassical economics are less useful than constructing an interdisciplinary approach with sufficient explanatory power to attract the allegiance of social scientists not already swept up by economism.

The nineteen conference papers comprising this book are divided into eight sections. The articles in the second and third sections dealing with methodology and utility theory will be most familiar and accessible to a wide spectrum of economists. Much of the remainder of the book focuses on the structure and functioning of the corporation, entrepreneurship, and management. Indeed, only two of the twenty-six contributors are formally affiliated with economics departments. However, all contributors are from highly-respected institutions, including five faculty members from the host institution, the Harvard School of Business.

The ultimate significance of socio-economics lies beyond the realm of academic debate. Issues such as restoring the competitive status of the U.S. economy, reviving the economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and developing the Third World all demand a sound theoretical base from which to formulate public policy and restructure social institutions. If neoclassical economics is as narrow and one-sided as socio-economists claim, its policy prescriptions are unlikely to meet the challenges of the next century.

The immediate task facing socio-economists is to move beyond the axioms from which economics derives its formidable modeling capabilities without abandoning the quest for a unified theory capable of guiding research and aiding in the interpretation of empirical data. This task is made difficult not only by the methodological uncertainties confronting a social science not patterned after the physical sciences, but also by the strong resistance of mainstream economists. Such resistance is exemplified by Robert Hall's statement that he refuses to read any paper containing the word "social" because it will be unscientific.

Yet, Etzioni's dismissal of economists as hopelessly entangled in an institutional web of incentives which reward loyalty to neoclassical orthodoxy is, upon reflection, inconsistent with the principles of socio-economics. True, economists as utility-maximizers are likely to focus on the obvious private costs of yielding their axiomatic science and the system of rewards associated with its application. As rational choosers, they will be less sensitive to the benefits of more empirically relevant and useful theorizing since these benefits are intangible, largely socialized, and in the future. However, socio-economics claims that humans are motivated to move beyond narrow calculations of self-interest in pursuit of self-esteem and civic virtue. If this description of human motivation applies to neoclassical economists, then socio-economists should be more diligent and optimistic in their efforts to open the channels of communication with the economics profession.