사회과학과 철학

Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis (Paperback)
Giddens, Anthony / Univ of California Pr / 1979년 11월

기든스의 저작은 사회과학도에게 결코 쉽지 않다. 소쉬르, 레비스트로스, 하이데거, 훗설, 데리다, 비트겐슈타인 등 철학도들에게도 어려운 이름들이 시도 때도 없이 등장한다. 단지 이름만이 아니라 그들의 이론과 개념을 동원해 기든스 자신의 이론을 전개하기 때문에 적어도 인용된 이름의 이론이 어떤 것인지는 알고 있어야 한다. 나름대로 철학공부를 했다고 자부하는데도 어려웠다. 물론 이책이 쓰여진 70년대 프랑스 구조주의가 유행앴던 유럽의 학계분위기를 반영하는 것이기도 하다. 그러나 그런 이름들이 등장하는 것은 그 이론들을 반기기 때문이 아니라 사회과학적으로 논박하면서 자신의 이론을 세우는 작업을 하기 때문이다. 기든스를 이해하려면 이책보다는 'The Constitution of Society'를 읽을 것을 권한다. 그러나 'The Constitution of Society' 자체도 읽기 쉽지 않다. 그런 면에서 'The Constitution of Society'을 읽고 그 시작이 어떠했는지를 이해하려면 이책을 보라. 그러면 더 쉽게 이해가 될 것이다.

다음은 내가 아마존에 썼던 리뷰이다.

It seems unneccessarily complicated riddle to solve to us, sociologists. actually Giddens's writing style in this title is not that easy to grasp judging from sociological convention. and worse he cited too many names like Saussure, Hegel, Levi-Strauss, Heidegger, Husserl and even Derrida and Wittgenstein! those that makes readers wandering around jargons from philosophy. because this book stem from the controversial atmosphere of 70s when French Structuralism prevailed over intellectural map. Giddens wanted to conter their assertions. we can see he was right at 80s when structurism collapsed into trendy postmodernist jargons. Anyway I recommend to read this title if u read 'The Constitution of Society'. which title is not that hostile to reader like this title. but something lacks on it. You can find what miss in later masterpiece. This title is somewhat earlier endeavor to clarify his theory of structuration. so theorems were not that clearly founded. it makes it the way to hostility to readers but sometimes this kind of imperfection is more valuable to portray one's image of theory.

무임승차의 문제

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, with a New Preface and Appendix (Paperback)
Olson, Mancur, Jr. / Harvard Univ Pr / 1971년 1월

게임이론의 코스트/베너핏 논리를 집단행동 즉 정치에 응용한 것이다. 이 분석틀에서 문제가 되는 것은 이득을 보려면 비용이 들게 마련인데 이 비용이 공평하게 떨어지지 않는다는 것이다. 여기서 프리라이더의 문제가 생긴다. 공공재와 세금부담이 이 논리에 따라 분석될 때 상당한 강점이 있다. 상당히 전형적인 게임이론이다. 이 책의 논리는 그다지 새로울 것은 없다. 정치학에서도 상당히 비슷하게 말하는 저작이 많다. 쉽고 명료하게 서술되었다는 것이 장점이다. 자세한 것은 내가 영어로 쓴 아래의 리뷰를 보라.

다음은 내가 아마존에 포스팅한 리뷰이다.

Cost/Benefit When we look at cases of organizations like labor union, pressure group or firm, Even if members share the common interest, it doesn't guarantee they will act on that interest. To achieve the purpose, one should pay the cost. But 'a goal or purpose is common to a group means that no one in the group is excluded from the benefit or satisfaction brought about by it achievement.' So if one could get the benefit without cost, he would let others bear the burden.
Public Good/Taxing: Everybody's business is nobody's business let's take example. The state provides public good like the defense, police protection, law system, which 'must be available to everyone if they are available to anyone'. It can't be free to provide those services. The burden is charged as tax. But tax evasion is as old as human history. It's the reason why the tax has been defined as 'compulsory payment'. Likewise 'collective good' of organizations cause the same free rider problem.
Size matters: Individual acts on the function of cost and benefit: The lower cost to get the collective good, the more willing to bear the cost. The smaller is the size of group, the larger is the share of collective good one gets in relation to total cost. Even though only one member with greatest interest pays all the cost, he will do so as long as benefit exceeds cost. This kind of group can provide collective good without relying on coercion or incentive apart from the collective good itself. But without arranging the share of burden (group-oriented act), the amount of collective good can't be optimized (exploitation). 'Accordingly, the larger the group, the farther it will fall short of providing an optimal amount of a collective good.' Moreover, the larger is the group, the less likely noticeable is the effect of individual's contribution. So here the leviathan comes in: Coercion and incentive. Once there is the formal organizing, the larger the better, for it leads to lower cost to each. But organizing itself should be obtained at cost. 'These are the costs of 'communication among group members, the costs of any bargaining among them, and the costs of creating, staffing, and maintaining any formal group organization.' These costs put on the total cost of getting collective good. And it makes the supply of collective not optimized. This reinforces the need of coercion/incentive.
Inclusive/Exclusive Group: If the nature of collective good is fixed (scarce) in supply, members doesn't resist to newcomers. In this case, members become competitor or rival to each other, for the availability of collective good is exclusive to each member. 'The firms in an industry would be an exclusive group when they sought a higher price in their industry by restricting output.' Here the monopoly is the ideal to participant. But in nonmarket situation, the opposite is true, for collective good is not fixed in supply. In other word, it's inclusive. In such a case, if permitted, the group tends to expand upto the point that benefit equals cost. When seeking lower taxes, or tariff, firms would make 'an inclusive group, and would enlist all the support they could get.
Privileged/Intermediate/latent Group: Privileged group refers to the small group providing collective good for sure without organizing or coordinating. Intermediate group refers to the small group where nobody gets the benefit sufficient to motivate him to provide the good himself but it's not big enough to demotivate completely. Latent group refers to the large group where the problem of free riders is salient.
Case Study-Unions are for collective bargaining: We take it for granted that labor union is by nature big organization. But contrary to common guess, the first labor unions in Britain and States began not as large, impersonal, metropolitan organizations (latent group) but as small, committed, local organizations (privileged group). It was better to be the privileged group with member's devotion and sacrifice (noncollective good cf. Owen), for it launched in hostile environment. But once a local union exists, a few factors drive it to organize the whole industry and to be large, national union.
1. In market economy, employers should compete each other, so they can't survive with higher wage.
2. Employers could find source of strikebreakers, were industry-wide organization.
But when it comes to large, national union, there should be the problem of free rider. Workers can't hate collective good like wage raising, better work condition, job security. But the strike, weapon to get it, means the cost, and that, strikebreakers are legally free to cross picket line and would enjoy better paying than ever. And bargaining with employer cannot help being collective not individual or restricted to union member. So here comes the compulsory membership i.e., closed shop or union shop. 'Compulsory membership and picket lines are therefore of the essence of unionism'. This explains away why the early history of union was flooded with violence between/among workers and employers. The decline of labor union in States could be illuminated in the same way; 'No Closed Shop'. Without coerced participation, there is no means to support the union. For individual efforts wont change the whole picture. To attract members, unions relied on noncollective benefit such as insurance, welfare benefit, seniority rights. But the advent of welfare state deprived them of incentive to offer.

The manifesto of world system theory

Modern World-System I (Paperback, Student) - Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of European World-Economy in the 16th Century
Wallerstein, Immanuel / Emerald Group Pub Ltd / 1974년 6월

월러스타인은 참으로 신기한 글쓰기 재주를 가졌다. 그의 이론은 아주 간단하게 요약된다. 그러나 그 주장은 글의 논리전개와는 무관하게 명료하다. 무슨말인가? 그가 참고하고 있는 논거는 거의 The Cambridge Economic History of Europe에서 발췌한 인용이다. 이 50년대에 발간이 시작된 이 시리즈는 대단한 권위를 가지고 있고 캠브리지에서 나온 역사 시리즈(Cambridge Histories)들 처럼 읽기에 어렵지도 않다. 그러나 월러스타인의 글쓰기는 참으로 요령부득이다. 인용을 아주 장문으로 집어넣고 자신의 주장은 그 인용에 대한 부연설명처럼 따라붙는다. 다시 말하자면 인용문을 제대로 소화하지도 못하고 있다는 말이다. 경제사에 대한 자신의 연구가 없이 그냥 브로델의 이론을 남의 글을 근거로 재생산하다보니 읽고 나서 아무 내용도 기억이 나지 않는 신기한 글을 쓰게 된 것이다. 차라리 월러스타인 이론의 근거가 되고 있는 브로델의 '물질문명과 자본주의'를 읽는 것이 휠씬 생산적이고 얻는 것이 많다. 이론 자체도 브로델이 휠씬 구체적이고 생생하다.

다음은 내가 아마존에 썼던 리뷰이다.

This book is the manifesto of world system theory. and that it was awarded by American association of sociology. Previously, the capitalism begin with the 1st industrial revolution. but Wallerstein questioned this common sense. he asserted it should be dated back to 16th century when Italian city-state prospered with Mediterrean trade. The book begins with how the feudalism fell and capitalism emerged. Volume 1 covers the shift of hegemoney in European world system from Italian city-states, Spain to Holland. The gist of his theorizing is the worldwide division of labor.
By the way, Overall points are easy to grasp. but the devils lies in the details. the book is flooded with bulks of long quotations. This distracts the attention of reader, so that lose the line of argument. Reading goes through between quotation to quotation. it even seems Wallerstein has no point of himself. I read twice to catch the logic of each chapter. but no avail. Dose Wallerstein has no ability to abbridge those quotations to his own word?
If you are interested in world system theory, I recommend to read Braudel's 'Civilization and Capitalism' instead. it's easy to follow and more systematic. and that much fun to read. Below I try to compare Braudel with Wallerstein
Power organizes the space. Organized space is the world where our perspective domiciles. There were always several worlds at the same time. For example, the premodern Chinese recognized other peoples than them. But they were outside their world. So they were barbarians who were much the same with beast. Only the one in the world which had meaning to them could be called human being. But now there is only one world on the globe. If we define it as the globalization, the history of capitalism is the process globalization over centuries since the 16th C. This is the grand image Braudel depicts before us in ¡®Civilization and Capitalism¡¯. If so, capitalism is not merely the system of exchange (or production), but the way to organize the world, in other word, the system of power. With no doubt, capitalism is the system of capitals. But capital is the power to control the flow of resources. Capital, in Marx¡¯s word, is the power to control the resources allocation in society. But the resource entails not only physical material but also human labor. No goods can be presented before us without human labor. Then trade of goods must reflect the relation of spaces where human beings dwell, whether it is done with coercion or contract. Trade could be carried out between the urban and the regional. The world Wallerstein depicts is the magnified image into global scale of such an order. The unit in that order is the nation-state. but in Braudel¡¯s image, The unit of space is not the state but the city. Capitalism is the network (or hierarchy) of cities, Braudel argues. Each has its own pros and cones. But these days Braudle¡¯s image has gained popularity over Wallerstein¡¯s, since Braudel¡¯s ¡®point-to-point¡¯ perspective fits better into the aspects of globalization. For instance, the global financial market could be better captured with Braudel¡¯s. It exists on the network of cities like New York, London, and Tokyo, not on the hierarchy of nation-states. According to Braudel, the capital and the state have its own interest and dynamic different from each other. In Wallerstein¡¯s framework, we can¡¯t spot such a distinction. But it¡¯s the point where we should begin to explain the current affair, globalization.

전략으로본 일본의 성공과 실패

Can Japan Compete? (Hardcover)
Porter, Michael E. / Basic Books / 2000년 10월

 좀 오래된 논의이다. 잘 쓰기는 했지만 이 책이 다루는 주제에 대해선 Regime Shift와 Japan: the System That Soured - The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Economic Miracle 을 읽을 것을 추천한다.

다음은 내가 아마존에 썼던 리뷰이다. 

Michael Porter become the celebrity in the field of business strategy with his two books, ¡®Competitive Advantage¡¯, ¡®Competitive Strategy¡¯. Takeuchi and Sakakibara secured their name in organizational learning school with their book, ¡®The Knowledge-Creating Company.¡¯ With this book, ¡®the word, ¡®knowledge creation¡¯ has been widely circulated within business schools.
This book poses the question, ¡®Why does Japan stumble?¡¯ it¡¯s the single most popular subject in Japanese studies. Numerous books come to mind on that issue. The approach this book takes is, nonetheless, unique. While others have tackled it in the view of macroeconomics or political economy, authors of this book take the view of microeconomics, or more precisely business strategy. They argue that more-than-decade-long deflation and liquidity trap are not the fundamental problem, but just symptoms. The underlying problem must be hunted for elsewhere: the eroded competitive advantage of Japanese companies. There has been warning signs since 1980s well before bubble bursting:
1. Since 1980s, no new internationally competitive industry has emerged.
2. The profitability, or capital productivity has long been low. Export share has been achieved and maintained partly by sacrificing returns to capital.
3. Japan¡¯s share of world exports peaked in 1986 (10%). But it has fallen since then to below 8%.
Bubble and subsequent financial meltdown certainly is serious trouble. But above reveals much deeper crisis: the loss of competitiveness.
Michael Porter maintains that firms initially gain competitive advantage by altering the basis of competition. They won not just by recognizing new market, or technologies but by moving aggressively to exploit the,. A firm¡¯s local rivalry in home nation plays a critical role in shaping manager¡¯s perceptions about the opportunities that can be exploited. Firms that survive vigorous local competition are often more efficient and innovative. In the 1970s and 80s, Japan set the world standard for operational effectiveness, that is, for improving quality and lowering cost: TQM, JIT system, lean production, cycle time reduction. Japanese companies pushed the productivity frontier well beyond the capabilities of many Western companies. Japanese companies¡¯ competitive advantage was obtained through cut-throat local competition. But starting in the mid- and late 1980s, the gap between Japanese and Western companies began to narrow through so-called restructuring or reengineering. Now Japan¡¯s source of competitiveness has been eroded away. As a result, international competition has ever more vigorously intensified not in the behalf of Japan. Worse, what drove Japan to be competitive now serve as drag on it. Fierce local rivalry degrade into competitive convergence. It means that all the competitors in an industry compete on the same dimension. As rivals imitate one another¡¯s improvements in quality, cycle time, or supplier partnerships, competition becomes a series of unwinnable races down identical paths. This occurs because Japanese firms believe that by mimicking competitors¡¯ technologies and products, they can avoid being in a weak positioning in the market. Because, as a result of mutual benchmarking, Japanese companies cannot but think of competition only in terms of operational effectiveness for their product lineup converges, the have made it almost impossible to be enduringly successful. The more benchmarking, the more they look alike. To avoid such a stalemate, they try to diversify product lineup. But it inflames only to another round of convergence. This kind of local rivalry has finally led to excess costs to over-differentiation for products as well as their components. Such costs have become too high, thus leading to a considerable waste of resources. When they set the best practices, such a cost could be dissipated at the expense of Western competitor¡¯s market share. But now such an advantage rarely exists, if any. Competitive convergence leads to the lack of focus. The lack of focus results in no obvious competitive advantage for they are over-diversified. Authors recommend to compete on strategy: Operational effectiveness is just one of two ways a company pursues superior performance. The other is through strategy, or competing on the basis of a unique positioning involving a distinctive product of service offering. The essence of strategy is to perform differently from rivals. It¡¯s choosing not to do something. They succumb to the temptation to chase easy growth by adding popular features and taking on product lines or services that do not fit their strategy. Or they target new customers to whom the company offers noting unique. But attempting to compete in several ways at once creates confusion and undermines organizational motivation and focus. Profits fall, so more revenue is seen as the answer. In sum, authors argues that the problem of Japan is more in mind-set than in unchangeable circumstances in Japan.

The market as a social field

The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies (Paperback)
Neil Fligstein / Princeton Univ Pr / 2002년 10월

경제사회학의 기초를 시장 자체에 놓으려는 시도이다. 저자는 시장에서의 행위를 다른 사회적 행위와 다르게 볼 이유가 없다는 전제에서 시작한다. 저자는 부르디외의 필드 개념을 원용하고 잇다.자세한 것은 아래에 내가 영어로 쓴 리뷰를 보라

다음은 내가 아마존에 썼던 리뷰이다 

Over past decades, what has bestowed the identity on economic sociology is the shared hostility to neoclassical economics. But besides it, unfortunately, they have agreed on nothing. And worse, economists simply pass over their arguments. They are no more than fusses about nothing. The reason is simple: there are no potent enough alternatives in sociological camp. Fligstein argues that this is because sociological approaches lack a organizing frame to explain economic processes as generic social processes. To make it effective, there should be a simple and powerful enough theoretical frame. Offering such an approach is what Fligstein intends with this book.
Economic action takes place in the market. Fligstein holds that there is no reason to treat the market differently. Social action takes place in organized social space, or field in Bourdieu¡¯s term. Fields is the space where one try to dominate others. But the domination in that space is systemized and routinized. It defines local relations between actors. Once in place, the interactions in fields become ¡®games¡¯ where groups in filed who have more power use the acceptable rules to reproduce their power: the domination system is institutionalized. This process makes action in fields inherently political. Studying field is about opening of new social space, how it becomes and remains stable (become a field), and the forces that transform fields.
Fligstein replaces profit-maximizing actor with one who takes care of the survival of their firm. Managers and owners are trying enhance the survival of the firm by reducing the uncertainties they face in the market. Managing uncertain environment is a sizable task. It¡¯s about the search for stable and predictable interactions with competitors, suppliers, and workers. Relationship between seller and buyer is fleeting. Stability in the market lies in the relationship between sellers, then. Relationships between them delineate the market as a field. The social relations are oriented toward maintaining the advantage of largest seller firms in the face of their challengers. They define how the market works and how competition is structured. Although the firms compete, they have produced an equilibrium whereby they survive by following the accepted tactics of competition. As forms of social relation, market systems involve both shared understanding and concrete social relations. The shared understandings structure the interactions between competitors but also allow actors to make sense of their competitors actions. There are four types of rules relevant to producing social structure in markets: property rights, governance structures, rules of exchange, and conception of control. These categories are the essential analytic tools in Fligstein¡¯s approach. They enable researcher to dissect empirically. But definition and details are intricate to propose here. I¡¯ll skip it.
Part I of this book sketch out the theoretical outline of Fligstein¡¯s approach. Part II support it with case studies of labor market, corporate governance, and globalization. On the whole, this book is readable and persuasive. Points are clear, lines are easy to follow. In my opinion, it¡¯s a breakthrough in economic sociology.