Back in 2007, economist Peter Klein asked Economists and Sociologists: Can’t We All Just Get Along? Dr. Klein says, sans rational choicers, most sociologists are uncomfortable with methodological individualism. However, I believe that there is a lot of disagreement between rational choice sociologists and economists about the principle of methodological individualism.
Even if we accept Schumpeter’s (1908) definition that methodological individualism is the doctrine that states that social phenomena are, in principle, only explicable in terms of individuals’ action, there is a difference between the sociologist’s and the economist’s version of this doctrine. Rational choice sociologists adhere to what I consider to be a flexible-version of methodological individualism. Economists remain close to a rigid-version.
The proponents of the rigid-version of methodological individualism, read economists, rarely accept explanations that include references to aggregate social phenomena in the explanans. These explanations bring to mind intermediate micro theory courses that ask students to answer questions related to the maximum revenue that can be expected based on an (x) amount of advertising. These explanations are challenging, and they help in teaching students how to think like rational choice scholars. But they ignore many essential elements of the social situation, such as legal rules, productive capabilities, and other social institutions, to remain faithful to the analytical core.
The adherents of the flexible-version of methodological individualism, read rational choice sociologists and Virginia-school Public Choicers, concur with the proponents of the rigid-version regarding the emergence of social institutions being explained by the consequences – intended and unintended – of human action. And very few, if any, proponents of the flexible-version of methodological individualism have not suffered through answering, e.g., maximum revenue homework problems, to (help) shed their loose and impressionistic reasoning. But, unless they are willing to engage in a Misesian infinite regress for each paper topic, the adherents of the flexible-version accept certain macro-level phenomena (e.g., legal rules) as given, and incorporate them into their explanations for the purposes of combining realism with analytical precision. This is the source of the disagreement, I contend, between the flexible and the rigid versions of methodological individualism. This, furthermore, contributes to the disconnect between many sociologists and economists.
Question:
Do these variants, at least in part, capture the economic and the sociological versions of methodological individualism?
What are some of the other variants of the doctrine of methodological individualism?
- Brian Pitt
This is an excellent question, but I think the use of aggregates creates more confusion than it solves, institutional and population generalities (common views, preferences, historical phenomena etc.) makes more ‘methodological’ sense than resorting to aggregates, which always seem to reduce to Weberian ‘ideal types’. And the problem with ‘ideal types’ is that in the process of traveling from real-to-ideal they typically lose much of what makes them coherent and meaningful to real actors in the real world. While deduction from an ‘ideal type’
is conceivable, it seems much more convincing to make empirical generalities predicated upon theory rather than making deduction from unreal constructs.
Vichy,
The aggregates that I am suggesting incorporating into rational choice sociology or the flexible-version of methodological individualism is, e.g., examining how the Protestant ethic [macro-state #1] influenced human interests, beliefs, and opportunities, and subsequently influenced human actions, and culminated in efficiency [macro-state #2] being the predominant criterion of evaluating human action.
Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, but what I would ask you is: how does this differ from citing (empirical) commonalities and habitualities. In applying economic theory and praxeology more generally it is important always to keep in mind that it is specific individuals who make these choices, but I think there is good evidence that certain general ideological and normative concepts – such as ‘the protestant ethic’ – will indeed tend to influence individual behaviour along specific lines. Human beings are not Forged From Chaos, and are very strongly influenced by the views of other people. I don’t see a problem with talking about aggregates like ‘Progressivism’, so long as we remember that the substance of this ‘aggregate’ has an effective existence only insofar as actual individual people do have such ideas, are susceptible to certain influences etc. Whether this IS the case is of course a question of empirical evidence and relevance to the question at hand.
Isn’t the appropriate degree of aggregation dependent on the problem being discussed?
For example, although the Austrian story of the business cycle is often interpreted to be an attack on aggregation, I prefer to think of it as claiming that the aggregations usually used by economists are insufficient to understand business cycles. In other words, the aggregates are inappropriate for the problem being addressed, i.e. the cause and unfolding of business cycles, even though they might be useful to discuss and understand other problems.
In a sense, even individual human are aggregates, “remember that the substance of this ‘aggregate’ has an effective existence only insofar as actual individual [cells] do have such [functions], are susceptible to certain influences etc.” But for most problems dealt with by economists, individual acting humans are an appropriate level of analysis, and more encompassing aggregates for others.
Heterogeneity of capital is what constitutes the ‘attack on aggregates’ in the ATBC. Capital, like all goods, are most definitely not aggregate. That being said, there is no essential problem if an economic history ‘aggregates’ certain ‘sectors’ of the economy, because he is judging the relevance of such differences. And, generally speaking, a can of pepsi is a can of pepsi is a can of pepsi. That being said, a can of pepsi only achieves such status because individuals generally accept them as being homogeneous goods.
One of the variations of MI, possibly formulated by Joe Agassi, is “institutional individualism” to emphasise the context that has to be included to provide an adequate explanation of actions – both causes and outcomes.
The defensible form of MI insists that whatever the institutional situation, it is flesh and blood individuals who see, hear, feel, think, form plans and intentions and make decisions, so the decision of a committee or an election is the result of decisions and actions by individuals.
Macro variables like interest rates, unemployment rates and inflation rates (or at least the perceived or expected rates) belong to the context or the situation of the actor and they will usually influence decisions in a plastic manner (“plastic” meaning non-deterministic).
Cultural, legal and political institutions and traditions will play a similarly plastic role in shaping actions – the degree of plasticity of course varies a great deal between societies and cultures. These constraints may be conscious or unconscious but they can change by human actions (planned and unplanned), unlike the natural laws of physics and the catallaxy that constrain actions whether people are aware of them or not.