[WS:] Utilitarianism is a philosophy. A belief that society operates by philosophical principles in everyday life may be acceptable to economists, philosophers, or lit-critters, but strikes me as rather odd when pronounced by a sociologist. It is like saying that Catholics, or even the Catholic Church operates by the philosophical doctrine developed by Thomas Aquinas. This is not only demonstrably false, but undermines the very assumption on which ethnography, anthropology and sociology rest - that local cultures are different from each other and studying them matters. If the collection of ideas - whether organized into a coherent philosophical system or simply assembled in some form of scripture - was the only thing that we need to know how society operates, we would not need ethnography, anthropology and sociology - philosophy and lit-crit woud be sufficient, and more cost-efficient too as studying text costs far less than field research.
One more point - the underlying assumption of organizational sociology - in which I was trained in graduate school - is that organizational behavior is determined by the cast of organizational actors - their interests, relative power, mutual connections, values etc. - but it is ex post facto rationalized by references to the dominant ideology or mythology, such as utilitarianism, efficiency maximization, economic rationality and similar Platonic ideas. The point is that there are very different outcomes justified by the same general ideals, so it is clear that these general ideals do not explain the variation of outcomes. Hence the focus on the cast of social actors, their interests, power, subculture, etc. Consequently, while I do appreciate abstract economic, philosophical or theological theories as art forms, I do not see them as very useful in explaining social behavior.
Wojtek
On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 7:51 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wojtek, its almost as if you've never heard of Utilitarianism... the
> philosophical foundation that undergirds not only the kinds of "economic
> rationality" you ascribe to a deviant subculture of capitalists but also to
> the who rational, self-interested, individualistic, and personally
> responsible norms and values that pervade what you appear to think is the
> rest of our non-deviant society. But, then again, you (implicitly) admit to
> having a sense of it when you point to he ways that these norms and vallues
> are celebrated and glamorized in the media and most areas of the academy
> (and, by the way, its not just academic literature... it is how students are
> told to be entrepreneurial in their pursuit of a degree and faculty who are
> insufficienty "rational, self-interested, individualistic, and personally
> responsible" are told to go elsewhere).
>
> Yeah, it is true that there are other values resident in and produced by
> other kinds of less-utilitarian social relations out there. But, since
> Utilitarian norms and values also undergird modern representative democracy,
> the heroic brand of technoscience and the rationalization of bureaucracies
> everywhere, as well as the secularization of previously religious
> ontologies, these other arenas are constantly under threat within
> modernity... thus the myriad forms of reactionary anti-modern movements here
> and abroad.
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Miles: " personal responsibility, individualism, self-interest"
>>
>> [WS:] Where do these come from? This discussion started about
>> breaking laws & government regulations. Business propaganda (quoted
>> by Michael P.) argues that this is a universal condition and
>> regulations will never work - which is the standard spiel of most econ
>> textbooks. I countered that it is not, because regulations work if
>> compliance with them is a part of business subculture, in which case
>> it is enforced by informal sanctions (e.g. Japan.) On the other hand,
>> if noncompliance is legitimized in that subculture - they will not
>> work (e.g. the US.) Furthermore, a subculture that justifies breaking
>> the law for a personal gain is considered deviant by generally
>> accepted standards - whether it is corporate subculture or a street
>> gang subculture. The only difference between the two is that the
>> former receives good press and legitimation by academic theories
>> whereas the latter does not.
>>
>> So what do personal responsibility and individualism have to do with it?
>>
>> Wojtek
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 7:39 PM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
>> > On 10/30/2010 05:59 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
>> >>
>> >> In sum, different social groups and networks develop different value
>> >> systems, which in turn affect the behavior of members of these groups
>> >> and networks. Some of these value systems are considered deviant by
>> >> general population, but most of them are not. This is Sociology 101.
>> >> What makes the deviant value systems of the capitalist subculture
>> >> different than those of "ordinary" deviant subcultures is the immense
>> >> propaganda effort undertaken by the media and the academia to
>> >> legitimate it. This creates a highly deceptive illusion that these
>> >> deviant norms are "natural" and prevail in every human society. In
>> >> reality, however, they are limited to a narrow group of capitalists
>> >> and their mouthpieces. It follows that fighting the deviant norms and
>> >> behavior of the capitalist class is much easier than the noise machine
>> >> that glamorizes it claims - it is fundamentally no different from
>> >> controlling (if not eliminating) other forms of deviance that all
>> >> human societies do.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Hey, I love Soc 101, so I agree with most of this. I do have a hard time
>> > thinking of the norms of capitalists as "deviant" when they are in fact
>> the
>> > dominant norms of our society (e.g., personal responsibility,
>> individualism,
>> > self-interest). For instance, if you ask the majority of people in our
>> > society why some people are poor, they will typically point to poor
>> people's
>> > personal deficiencies. I agree that's the result of the incessantly
>> > reinforced norms and values of capitalism; however, from a sociological
>> > perspective, there's nothing "deviant" about it; it's just the dominant
>> > perspective in our society right now.
>> >
>> > Miles
>> > ___________________________________
>> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>> >
>>
>> ___________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> *********************************************************
> Alan P. Rudy
> Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> Central Michigan University
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