What if Sociologists Had as Much Influence as Economists?
some of the most pressing problems in big chunks of the United States may show up in economic data as low employment levels and stagnant wages but are also evident in elevated rates of depression, drug addiction and premature death. In other words, economics is only a piece of a broader, societal problem.
.. “Once economists have the ears of people in Washington, they convince them that the only questions worth asking are the questions that economists are equipped to answer,”
.. while economists tend to view a job as a straightforward exchange of labor for money, a wide body of sociological research shows how tied up work is with a sense of purpose and identity.
.. But what social values can do is say that unemployment isn’t just losing wages, it’s losing dignity and self-respect and a feeling of usefulness and all the things that make human beings happy and able to function.”
.. in the United States, his subjects viewed their ability to land a job as a personal reflection of their self-worth rather than as an arbitrary matter. They therefore took rejection hard, blaming themselves and in many cases giving up looking for work. In contrast, in Israel similar unemployed workers viewed getting a job as more like winning a lottery, and were less discouraged by rejection.
.. the industrial economy offered blue-collar men a sense of identity and purpose that the modern service economy doesn’t.
.. “When no one asks us for advice, there’s no incentive to become a policy field,”