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Recent social theory has begun to reconsider how theactivityof work can contribute to well-being or autonomy under the right conditions. However, there is no consensus on what this contribution consists in, and so on precisely which normative principles should be marshalled to critique harmful or repressive forms of workplace organisation. This paper argues that Richard Sennett’s concept of work ascraftprovides a normative standard against which the organisation of work can be assessed, especially when explained within a broadly Aristotelian account of the conditions of human flourishing. More precisely, the paper argues that a craft norm can meet the standards of social critique within the Frankfurt School tradition of Critical Theory, as this tradition has been interpreted by Axel Honneth. Honneth himself now rejects craft norms as too utopian and parochial to inform Critical Theory under contemporary economic conditions. In reply, this paper uses sociological studies of call centre workers to illustrate how work motivated by craft ideals can be sustainable rather than utopian, and how craftsmanship can inform social critique across a wide variety of industries and management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that it is very possible, even in times of monetary austerity, to decrease the perceived costs of inclusion by resurrecting the vocabulary of belonging, friendship and love. Qualitative research was conducted with special educators’ (n = 33) regarding curricular access decisions for students with significant cognitive disabilities in the northeastern US. Results about academic access were published previously but participants’ use of capitalist economic language remained troubling, and while achievement was described as a necessity, inclusion was a seeming luxury. Intuitive inquiry and principles of economic theory including orthodoxy: the reverence given to economic explanations, and veto economics: words that can stop a discussion or plan from moving ahead offer a different interpretation of austerity and abundance. Healthy economies depend on frequent reciprocal exchanges and problems occur when there is excessive frugality or spending. A disproportionate focus on independence and discreet skill achievement is being too ‘frugal’ with students’ time. Becoming alert to economic orthodoxy and veto words, i.e. ‘individualised’ and ‘independent’ enables educators to challenge the false rationality of exclusion. Rather than being a luxury item, inclusion is a necessity. The cost-benefit trade-off for inclusion must be re-conceptualised to weigh friendship, acceptance and community more heavily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the intellectual trajectories of the first stand-alone theories of action, understood as both axiologically neutral and quasi-scientific from a methodological point of view. I argue that the rise of action theory of this kind corresponds to a particular moment of dissatisfaction within Western thought, and as such, it tells us far more about the history of philosophy than the subject itself. I conclude by explaining why subsequent failures to provide an acceptable theory of action are not accidental. On the contrary, such failures owe themselves probably to the fact that formulating a theory of action is neither propitious nor useful. Thus, the most valuable lesson we can learn from philosophical desires for a theory of action is that we should take co-action as the starting point in our normative investigations, rather than positing action simpliciter as a problem to solve. That is, instead of postulating a theory of action, we should think of a paradigm shift, whereby we move away from a representational paradigm in philosophy towards a co-actional one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper distinguishes between epistemological naturalism, which it supports, and ontological naturalism, which it opposes. It sketches the emergence of anti-naturalist social theory among nineteenth-century African-American intellectuals and its refinement by twentieth-century feminists. These movements challenged ontological naturalism in the social sciences by substituting social constructionist concepts of race and gender for naturalist ones. Economics awaits a similar liberation. The paper identifies four naturalist concepts-atomism, determinism and biologically determined race and gender differences--as structuring mainstream economic theory. It concludes that ontological naturalism is inconsistent with the application of the epistemology of the natural sciences to the social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents several papers related developments in economics as realist social theory. According to the author, social theory expressly committed to work out the nature of social being, and, or how people access social reality is going through something of a revival in economics. The papers presented, provide numerous results, arguments, conjectures, and critiques have been produced in recent years, and aim to take some of these specific developments further. Context of the papers and basic ideas and results are presented.

In a valuable and engaging critique, Hamnett and Butler conclude that our analysis of the socio-spatial dimensions of inequality in London originates from a ‘parallel universe’, that it is ‘bizarre’ for us ‘middle-class university professors’ to claim that ‘the middle class does not exist,’ and that our approach involves 'looking into the rear view mirror or class structure in the 1840s.' In this paper we provide a response, and we reiterate the urgent need for class-conscious politics and method in contemporary urban research. Dominant narratives of postindustrial transnational urbanism tend to erase any concern for class conflict, as old occupational structures that once closely reflected locally-observable relations of production are replaced by a much more intricate and respatialized occupational matrix of positions that (when analysed in conventional ways) creates an aspirational mirage of utopian middle-class opportunity. Yet the materialist conditions of capitalist urbanization intensify class antagonisms, while polarizing social relations within domains typically understood as 'middle-class' (including the professoriate). At the same time, the Right has hijacked traditional Left commitments to radical openness to difference and contingency, thus diverting critical energies away from fundamental challenges to class inequality into the safer technocratic territory of managing inequalities with a creative, de-classified menu of friendly-sounding policies of inclusion, mixing, tolerance, and social sustainability. One way to challenge this dangerous trend involves a fusion of multivariate quantitative analysis with contemporary critical social theory (drawing on Žižek and others) to account for the new multidimensional relations of postindustrial occupational structures within the increasingly severe class antagonisms of capitalist urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The interrelation between John Stuart Mill's political economy and his social philosophy is often neglected by economists, even though social and moral progress is the aim and focus of Mill's work as scholarship on Mill has made clear in past decades. This paper aims to show how Mill's political economy fits his framework of progress. It is argued that Mill characterized his economics in accordance with his theory of (individual) development, which explained how people could be induced to change patterns of behavior that prevented progress, enabling “a tendency towards a better and happier state.” Mapping out how to overcome the Malthusian trap of poverty, the most serious stumbling block to man's material and moral improvement, Mill brought economics into action as an instrument for progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the growing number of analysts who employ the world system perspective on national development, theoretical disagreements have evolved which may only be settled by examination of available data. Using an adaptation of the network metaphor, this paper blockmodels the world trade system in order (1) to demonstrate a single mode of international exchange in the world system instead of the competing capitalist and communist modes proposed by some, and (2) to illustrate the unique position of the middle level of nations in a three tier world system—a position sometimes denied. Implications for the competing world system theories and world development itself are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theorizing in economics is often associated with some form of individualism. This paper considers the nature of this association in the work of Carl Menger. I adopt this focus not only because of continuing interest in Menger's work, but because recent developments in social theory facilitate a fruitful reevaluation of his general position. I argue that a convincing link between theory and individualism is absent in Menger's work. Moreover, I argue that the various criticisms often made of his work actually relate to the ideas which underlie his individualism rather than, as is usually supposed, those arising from an adherence to a form of Aristotelianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]