Sociology versus economics: Economic life as social fact and social struggle

This review essay critically engages with recent works by Mark Granovetter, an American sociologist whose articles about social networks are among the most cited in the history of the discipline, and Thomas Piketty, a French economist whose early, illustrious career turned to worldwide public recognition with the publication of le Capital au XXieme siècle in 2015. The contrast is therefore between a well-known sociologist, one of the foremost scholars in economic sociology in the English language, and an economist of international renown who has challenged mainstream economics with his research on economic inequality and his call for participatory public involvement in economic decision-making. Both insist on the economic as social, but in distinctive ways. In this essay, first, I consider Granovetter’s long-awaited Society and Economy: Framework and Principles and Piketty’s recent Capital et idéologie, a follow-up to his earlier, best-selling book, on their own terms. Second, I think through how each scholar might understand and critique the other, pointing to complementarities and important differences in their approaches. I conclude that although both Granovetter and Piketty challenge mainstream economistic accounts of economic life, while emphasizing human agency and so the contingency of given economic relationships, they differ significantly in their respective analytical and political-normative focus. For Granovetter, what matters is that economic life is a social fact, while for Piketty it is a social struggle.