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This paper explores the presence and consideration of economics in sociology, specifically its classical version. It identifies certain original and independent economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociological theory as central and its derivations, implications and extensions of economics as peripheral. The paper argues and demonstrates that classical sociology is far from being the science of noneconomic or irrational phenomena, as often sociologists conceive it and economists perceive it in counter-distinction from economics defined as the science of rational behavior, and indeed encompasses virtually all economic activities and processes, and thus prefigures New Economic Sociology adopting the same approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I sustain that the discourse of economics has become one of the most substantial contributors to the erosion of the democratic ideal. The first argument used in this case against economics concerns its attempt to be considered a neo-naturalistic science; the second, the fact that economics considers democracy contradictory to the expression of its scientific rationality and; the third, the fact that economics crowds out people from decision-making processes by pushing them into the hands of experts. Because partisan political programmes have essentially become economic programmes, economics should contribute to substantive democracy. In order to do so, an alternative discourse to mainstream economics must be proposed. An economics favourable to substantive democracy should, thereby, be political rather than naturalistic, pluralist rather than monist and, instead of crowding out people from decisions processes, should aim at the co-production of economic knowledge with those concerned by the outcome of economic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-reported happiness does not generally increase with rising income, as established by Richard Easterlin. We argue that the current debate in economics about the income-happiness paradox has paid too little attention to the theoretical foundation of the expected positive relation between income and happiness, seeking an empirical resolution through better data and more elaborate estimating equations instead. We return to the history of economics and revisit the contributions of Irving Fisher and Kenneth Boulding for the missing economic theory that underlies the income-happiness paradox. According to both Fisher and Boulding, “consumer capital” is the ultimate source of welfare, whereby consumer capital is defined as an accumulated stock of tangible and intangible instruments that yield a stream of services over their useful life. In the view of Fisher and Boulding, it is the utilization of this capital stock that renders happiness to individuals. Moreover, income that pays for the goods of consumption can be a “bad,” reflecting the cost of maintaining the consumer capital stock. Therefore, Fisher and Boulding’s insights bring a new perspective to the Easterlin paradox, showing that the empirical finding that rising income contributes only little, if anything, to levels of happiness has been overemphasized at the expense of the theoretically more relevant relation between consumer capital and happiness, and the exact role of income therein. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]