Social Contracts and Economic MarketsSpringer, 2007 M08 20 - 218 pages The thesis of this book is that people enter into social contracts because they are different from one another and have incentives to cooperate. In economic life, people have identical interests—namely, their own se- interests—so they have an incentive to compete. The social worlds that we create, or map, and those that are already mapped for us are increasingly complex, and thus the tracking of rationality is not so straightforward, although it is everywhere evident. In a sense, this book grew out of two questions: Why hasn't the United States had a second revolution? Or is the revolution yet to come? Many have discussed the current crises that confront contemporary society, such as great economic inequalities, poverty, the declining quality of jobs, the growing power of corporate elites, and racial antago nisms. I attempt to understand these problems in terms of the radical restructuring of social life by economic and spatial forces. My specula tive thesis is that social organizations must reinforce social contracts and nurture the opportunities for them to be forged. However, contemporary organizations, particularly economic ones, have internalized the princi ples of economic markets, thereby inducing competition and easing out cooperation. In defining social contracts, I draw from Rousseau and also from Marx and his analysis of use value. One hopes that new organiza tional forms based on principles of democracy and community will evolve. In a diverse, multicultural society, this requires great mutual understanding and cooperation and the recognition of differences. |
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... Profit Organizations of Yale University . For the seclusion to develop the initial conception for this project , I am grateful for the opportunity to have spent a summer residency at the Bellagio Conference Center with support from the ...
... Profit Organizations of Yale University . For the seclusion to develop the initial conception for this project , I am grateful for the opportunity to have spent a summer residency at the Bellagio Conference Center with support from the ...
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Contents
| 1 | |
The Social Contract | 17 |
Rationality | 32 |
Partialled and Nonpartialled Roles | 46 |
The Civility of Ordinary Life | 53 |
Embeddedness of Social Structures | 60 |
10 | 62 |
Culture and Group Membership | 67 |
Worlds of Fashion Lives of Leisure | 145 |
Rank and Disarray | 152 |
Cosmopolitan Culture | 158 |
54 | 161 |
The Micrometrics of Morals and the Macrometrics | 165 |
The Suspension of EthicsThe Role of the State | 176 |
60 | 187 |
Rights Goods and Welfare | 189 |
Positions and Culture | 73 |
2278 | 76 |
Equality and Diversity | 80 |
The Firm and Its Contradictions | 125 |
A Crack in the Edifice | 132 |
SelfEmployment | 139 |
The Civics of Cooperation | 192 |
Index | 207 |
61 | 208 |
84 | 214 |
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Common terms and phrases
activities American American middle class argued Basic Books behavior Blau buyers capital capitalist Chicago Press collective command economy competition complex consequences constraints contemporary context cooperation coordination corporate Coser costs create cultural decline defined distinction Durkheim E. P. Thompson economic actors economic inequalities economists efficiency Émile Durkheim Ernest Gellner ethics example firms Free Press Georg Simmel groups growth Harvard University Harvard University Press important increasing increasingly individual industrial interdependence interests internal labor markets investments involve issues Karl Marx Karl Polanyi leisure managers mapping Marx means ment Micrometrics middle class mobility modern moral norms numbers opportunities organizational organizations Oxford participate person play political postmodern problems production profit rationality recognition Robert role rules self-interest social arrangements social contracts society sociologists Sociology spatial status structures theory tion tradition Trans transactions University of Chicago urban wage whereas workers York
Popular passages
Page 58 - There once were two watchmakers, named Hora and Tempus, who manufactured very fine watches. Both of them were highly regarded, and the phones in their workshops rang frequently— new customers were constantly calling them. However, Hora prospered, while Tempus became poorer and poorer and finally lost his shop. What was the reason? The watches the men made consisted of about 1,000 parts each. Tempus had so constructed his that if he had one partly assembled and had to put it down— to answer the...
Page 58 - The watches that Hora made were no less complex than those of Tempus. But he had designed them so that he could put together subassemblies of about ten elements each. Ten of these subassemblies, again, could be put together into a larger subassembly; and a system of ten of the latter subassemblies constituted the whole watch.
Page 166 - MAN naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely ; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful ; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praise-worthiness ; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise.
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Page 9 - Cunegonde; the third, to see her every day; and the fourth to listen to Doctor Pangloss, the greatest philosopher of the province and therefore of the whole world. One day when Cunegonde was walking near the castle, in a little wood which was called The Park, she observed Doctor Pangloss in the bushes, giving a lesson in experimental physics to her mother's waiting maid, a very pretty and docile brunette.
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