The core object ‘society’ and sociology’s public relevance

Introduction

As do most of the essays gathered in this special issue, the recent collection Sociological Objects: Reconfigurations of Social Theory (Cooper et al., 2009a) offers considerable evidence for the proposition that there is not a strong mood within sociology today to conduct an ongoing productive debate about ‘society’ as the core object of the discipline, in the way that, for example, economics conducts such a debate about ‘the economy’. Sociology is much more likely to have disparate debates, each organized around a different object or candidate-object. That is, most debates within the discipline about what is, are or should be its object or objects are conducted by advocates of some theoretical trend which these advocates think more important than other trends, and certainly more important than society.

This situation is far from conducive to increased public relevance, especially because, in most cases, the target audience of each debate is a cohort of insiders. If the discipline were to more strenuously organize and/or participate in public debates about society it would, at the very least, find itself associated with a notion which has currency beyond the field itself. Even if sociologists were to debate society using technical language they might still attract wide public attention, in the way that economics attracts such attention when it debates technical aspects of the economy, like monetary policy or ‘irrational exuberance’ or the technicalities of the derivatives behind the global financial crisis (for examples of economists’ contributions to such public debates, see Ahamad, 2009; Akerlof and Shiller, 2009; Kindleberger, 2000 [1978]; Paulson, 2010; Tett, 2009; Wessell, 2009; for a useful history of the emergence of economics as an important public discipline, see Walter, 2011).

As has been emphasized at a number of points in this issue, in the past sociology enjoyed much more public relevance than it does now, in part by publicly debating society or aspects of it. This is not to say that public interest in the discipline in the 21st century is non-existent. As the debate inspired by Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2000) indicates, public interest will be generated if the approach is right. But it is to say that public interest in sociology today is spasmodic at best and, compared to the public interest generated by debates within economics, mostly dormant.

In this article I wish to use the Sociological Objects book to help me achieve three goals, each one already pursued by at least one of the previous contributors. In the first section I will focus solely on the positive aspects of the book in order to add a little more to the explorations of other contributors on the historical decline within sociology of the object society. In the second section I will turn to what I regard as the book’s most glaring weakness to show how easily the lessons offered by historical insights can be undermined by a commitment to a particular type of theory, or, rather, to a particular attitude toward the use of theory. This will involve me highlighting the paradox whereby it is sometimes the authors who provide the historical insights who undermine them. In the third section I will draw on an earlier essay by Stephen Turner (1994) to further emphasize the damage that can be done if sociology does not make an effort to keep itself publicly relevant. In the concluding section I will differentiate my remarks about the need for public relevance from the recently launched project known as public sociology.

The decline of the object society within sociology

Sociological Objects (Cooper et al., 2009a) does such a good job of demonstrating the discipline’s current failure even to agree that society is its core object, let alone to engage in a public debate about it, that it leaves the reader wondering whether sociology is no longer the study of society or aspects of society (whether cities, law, food, emotions, religion, medicine, etc.) but is now the study of whatever passing theoretical trend it chooses to study. Cooper (2009: 9) offers a list of such trends (albeit in a different context): ‘liquid modernity, information, mobility, the relation between literary and social theory, cosmopolitanization, globalization, governance, and postcolonialism’. Is sociology now, we might ask, nothing more than the study of any trend which has enough advocates to convince other sociologists that this particular trend is, at least for a while, the object of the discipline? This is a very depressing prospect; a field which wishes to study only the latest theoretical trend will never be taken seriously as a contributor to the study of important public issues.

The book’s achievement in this regard is exemplified in its opening chapter, by the first-named editor, Geoff Cooper (2009: 9). He highlights the great success of challenges from within the discipline which aim to minimize or eradicate the use of the object society. These challenges, as we saw above, have recently come from a variety of theoretical directions. Society is no longer sociology’s core object, an internal challenger is likely to say, because of any one or all of ‘liquid modernity, information, mobility, the relation between literary and social theory, cosmopolitanization, globalization, governance, and postcolonialism’. Cooper draws on the work of the historian of social theory Peter Wagner (for example Wagner, 1994) in tracing the ‘fortunes’ of the ‘concept of society … as a “scientific object” from its relatively recent emergence … to its possibly imminent passing away’ (Cooper, 2009: 9).

In this way, Cooper and a few of the other contributors to Sociological Objects are trying to revive the debate about the discipline’s core object. In this mode, they sensibly eschew an overreaction to Margaret Thatcher’s famous claim that there is no such thing as society (Cooper, 2009: 9) and they avoid the trap which snared an exasperated Michael Mann in his influential The Sources of Social Power (1986). In that book Mann feels so overwhelmed by the possibility that society will always be treated as ‘an unproblematic, unitary totality’ that he says, ‘It may seem an odd position for a sociologist to adopt; but if I could I would abolish the concept of “society” altogether’ (1986: 2). Cooper and the other pro-core authors in Sociological Objects seem confident they can overcome the problem of seeing sociology’s chief object as an ‘an unproblematic, unitary totality’, especially by emphasizing its complex history.

In this vein, they provide insights about sociology’s various competing objects and their ‘distance’ from the object society. In offering these insights, these authors, like those in this special issue, show that while sociology has never had a ‘unitary’ understanding of society, it once was able to straightforwardly consider society its core object and to conduct a constructive debate about it, even though some elements within that debate took the opportunity to urge that society be dumped as the core object. Cooper (2009: 10–12), for instance, deals quickly but effectively with ‘Arendt’s apparently negative view of the social’, which she compared unfavourably to ‘the political’, particularly with regard to ‘the rise of “mass society”’; with ‘Simmel’s preference for terms such as “sociation”’ as a possible precursor to ‘the recent preference for more concrete and process oriented concepts, in contrast to … society’; with Tarde’s enthusiasm for society ‘in taking up his opponent Durkheim’s conception of the social and social facts’; and with Garfinkel’s commitment to the details of the operation of society, especially as it is exemplified in his ‘refusal of a sociological meta-language’.

In their chapter, David Inglis and Roland Robertson also draw on the work of Wagner in dealing with ‘the very complex genealogy and etymology of the idea of “society” as it was deployed in – mostly French and German – sociology in the later nineteenth century’. From this they argue that ‘no simple account, like Beck’s, can be rendered of the connections between notions of social order in general, and more specific, territorially-oriented understandings of it’ (2009: 28). They are able to use this historical insight to defend Weber against Beck’s attack. They first borrow from Chernilo the point that: ‘Beck has set up various straw men with the aim of contrasting their alleged naïve territorially-oriented assumptions with his model of “cosmopolitan sociology” oriented towards the comprehension of “world risk society”’. On the strength of this point they argue that a ‘more historically accurate depiction of the analytical orientations of the sociological thinkers in question’ would reveal the many subtleties of Weber’s handling of the notion of society (Inglis and Robertson, 2009: 29; on this see also: Stone, 2010).

For his part, Olli Pyyhtinen (2009: 43) argues that, as a ‘latecomer in the family of sciences sociology had to struggle to find a distinct subject matter of its own’, particularly to make society into that distinct subject matter. He goes on to propose that, for Durkheim ‘this was found in “social facts”’, for Weber ‘in “social action”’, and for Simmel ‘in “social forms”’. From this proposition he draws the conclusion that, ‘Notwithstanding their crucial differences, all these notions were employed in order to specify what is purely social, “the social” as such – the quest for a genuine sociological phenomenon which would legitimize sociology as an independent science’.

One might be tempted to quibble with some aspects of Pyyhtinen’s conclusion – drawing from a source like Lepenies (1988: esp. 279–96), for instance, the point that both Weber and Simmel practised sociology in a manner which was much more concerned with local debates than Pyyhtinen’s argument allows – but even if one did, it would not detract from the value of his and the other historical insights contained in the book. They are welcome additions to the all-too-small literature on the history of sociology’s modes of approaching its object (see for example Bannister, 1987; Turner, 1986, 1992).

An unwanted and unfortunate lesson in how theory can undermine historical insights

With a few noteworthy exceptions – some already discussed, some to be discussed at the end of this section – the editors of Sociological Objects and a few of its other authors work assiduously yet inadvertently to undermine the worth of their valuable historical insights. They do this by drawing on a type of knowledge they call ‘theory’ which, for some reason, is itself exempted from the type of historical investigation that serves them so well when they apply it to other types of knowledge. In other words, on too many of the occasions when their historical interrogation of sociology’s inability to constructively debate its core object is starting to bear fruit they invite into the room another type of investigator, the ‘theorist’. As a persona, the theorist – whichever actual thinker it is at any given time (I will mention shortly some of the many theorists called on in the book) – is totally uninterested in sociology’s historical failings and totally uninterested in its capacity to debate its core object in a down-to-earth, publicly relevant manner. For this persona sociology is not to be judged by historical facts. These must be imperiously waved away, for its ‘proper’ dealings with its object are not to be conducted on this dirt-floor level, they are to be conducted on a much higher plane, the plane of theory. As such, theorists do not worry about whether sociology was once concerned to debate what society is or is not, instead they celebrate the fact that the discipline has now turned to welcome the arrival of the theoretical quest to elevate such questions to a higher level, thereby problematizing society as an object.

This all-too-quick relegation of the use of history in favour of the use of timeless, universal theory is a serious problem, one that it is far more prevalent in the book than it needs to be. After all, the principal exception in the book – Paul du Gay’s chapter (2009) – draws heavily on the main source available today for direct challenges to theory’s imperiousness, Ian Hunter’s essay ‘The History of Theory’ (2006; see also Hunter, 2007a, 2007b, 2008a, 2009; Harley, 2008). In other words, the editors are able to welcome into their book Hunter’s underlying proposition that knowledge which is called ‘theory’ is in fact knowledge in exactly the same way as is other knowledge – produced at a particular time and place, with the usual constraints and foibles of any down-to-earth human endeavour, including the usual scramble for status and prestige – yet they do so seemingly without noticing that this proposition applies directly to them.

The first instance of this theory-above-the-world problem occurs soon after Cooper has so carefully introduced the book’s concern with the historical specificity of sociology’s troubled dealings with the object society, as discussed (and praised) above. In a five-page section Cooper (2009: 4–8) suggests that the best approach to these troubled dealings might be to follow a philosophical path laid out by Deleuze and Guattari, by which specific features of time and place are packaged into ‘geophilosophy’ (2009: 4). In this way, Cooper argues that sociology’s history might productively be packaged into ‘geosociology’, around the slogan ‘no history outside theory, and no theory outside history’. He does not wish sociology to ‘hypostatize concepts and theories and ignore their historical specificity’ but says it would be just as bad if sociology were ‘to proceed as if history could provide a point of reference that is both external to theory, and therefore able to explain it’ (2009: 4).

Inasmuch as this is a marker of Cooper’s commitment to history as a source of insights about sociology, it is to be lauded, but it is also a terrible mistake. In these particular formulations, which Cooper is so keen to have sociology take on board, history (as a method) is being sold short. The theorists who are offering Cooper the formulations (he meets Deleuze, Guattari, Heidegger and Derrida in the course of these five pages) insist that history and theory are simply two equal partners in the one helpful process. Cooper should be wary of this claim. For a start, this is not theory in the scientific sense of an hypothesis formulated from existing knowledge, which is to be tested empirically to see if it can be falsified, this is theory in an altogether different sense, a sense in which no empirical testing is permitted. As the best features of Sociological Objects demonstrate, the import of pursuing the history of sociology’s dealings with its object is precisely that it provides the type of evidence that can be tested empirically, which in turn can allow empirically informed judgments about the success or otherwise of sociology’s attempts to build convincing public knowledge of its object. If one were to use this goal to value the use of history in considering sociology’s dealings with its object, or any of its other dealings for that matter, one would know that the slogan Cooper proposes – ‘no history outside theory, and no theory outside history’ – is extremely misleading. If it is to do its job properly the method of history has to be external to theory. If it is not it will have already been swallowed by theory.

Sociologists might well opt to use theory alone as their means of validating knowledge, for this is undoubtedly a widely accepted way to proceed (albeit one which instantly renders the discipline a sub-discipline of philosophy). But they cannot then say they also wish to validate knowledge using historical evidence. If they do they will be dealing with rival modes of deciding what is true and what false. They will, this is to stress, still be left with the task of deciding between these rivals. If they proceed by thinking that they can compromise by allowing into their work both possibilities for validating knowledge they will be fooling only themselves. Theory, in the sense that Cooper is borrowing from the likes of Deleuze, Guattari, Heidegger and Derrida, cannot accept empirical knowledge on its own terms. Instead, theory must judge empirical knowledge against the metaphysical standards upon which theory assumes it must have been built. It almost goes without saying that if empirical knowledge is judged against these standards it will be always judged inferior (Hunter, 2008b). Equally, while the method of history can employ theory in the scientific sense set out above, it should never accept it in its anti-empirical, metaphysical sense, for if it did it would no longer be history.

Already I have made plain that I am backing history against theory as a means for assessing sociology’s achievements in dealing with its object, especially for assessing these achievements against those of economics. Before I discuss du Gay’s chapter and some other exceptions in more detail I need to point out a few examples in which other authors in Sociological Objects replicate the editors’ flawed attempt to combine history and theory.

In her chapter on Durkheim’s complex dealings with the object society, Irene Rafanell (2009: 62) takes a slightly different direction, but nonetheless still undermines her useful historical points about Durkheim’s account of social facts, especially to do with his insistence that social facts need to be understood through the particular uses made of them. In her case, when she turns abruptly away from her historical insights it is to turn towards ‘two radical social constructionist accounts that I believe provide useful tools for grounding Durkheim’s notion of social objectivity’, one a ‘performative theory of sex and gender’, the other a ‘performative theory of social institution’.

Suddenly the terrain has changed; empirically grounded historical points about what Durkheim was doing as he put together his account of social facts have given way to these two ‘higher-level’ theories – a theory that seeks to read the empirically grounded material through the lens of ‘the performative force of linguistic utterances’ (2009: 63) and a theory that seeks to read it through the lens of ‘a process of self-referentiality within … referencing dynamics that denotes a clear social construction behind human knowledge and practices in general’ (2009: 63).

Social constructionism is being used here, as it so often is, to take the social out of the empirical plane, where it might be studied in terms of its empirical traces, which, ipso facto, can be accessed directly via the senses, and up to a plane where the senses are not enough, where one must somehow go ‘behind’ (read ‘beyond’) human knowledge and human practices. The term ‘social construction’ is, in this way, a marker of the priestly theorist who is qualified to take readers where they would not be capable of going were they to remain trapped in the empirical realm, that is, were they to remain in a domain where theory is not properly available to them, whether by unfortunate circumstance or, worse, by choice. This point could equally be made about aspects of another chapter in the book, in which Christian Greiffenhagen and Wes Sharrock (2009: esp. 124–6) discuss mathematics as a social construction, and it could be made about Anna Tsatsaroni and Geoff Cooper’s (2009: esp. 171–3) attempt to ‘translate’ Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ into ‘a sociological idiom’.

This is not to suggest that the metaphor of construction is totally the preserve of above-the-world theory. This may be the case for ‘deconstruction’ but it is not the case for ‘construction’. Indeed, some contributors to Sociological Objects (for example: Lynch, 2009: esp. 109–14; Rawls, 2009: esp. 93) offer important discussions on the way in which those branches of sociology that define society using the intricacies and fragility of human interaction – for example ethnomethodology and conversation analysis – deal strictly with empirically verifiable traces of humans constructing their interactions. One could sensibly say that for these branches of sociology, society is constructed. But this is ‘constructed’ in the way that a building is constructed – every single component, every single tool, every single process, etc. is empirically available for description. Sociology of this sort is obviously useful for non-sociologists wanting to know more, in a practical not theoretical sense, about how various aspects of daily life work. Here one might draw a parallel with the early 18th-century work of Christian Thomasius, who reformed the teaching of law and politics by limiting the role of abstract, theoretical knowledge (Gelehrtheit) in favour of practical, empirical knowledge (Gelahrtheit), particularly in attempting to make knowledge of law and politics more relevant to non-specialists (see esp. Barnard, 1971; Stone, 2008).

This is to say that those parts of the book that are able to resist the lure of the supposed superiority of theoretical knowledge emphasize on-the-ground details as the focus of the study of society and are more relevant to a wider public for doing so. Other examples include Pyyhtinen’s (2009: 44) point that Simmel ‘did not fear getting his hands dirty with what seems “banal” and “repulsive”’; the editors’ praise for those who root out ‘the taken for granted but unseen nature of social phenomena’ (Cooper et al., 2009b: 78); and Nanna Mik-Meyer’s (2009: 139) insistence that every researcher in conversation analysis ‘eschews abstraction and theoretically loaded categories’ and turns instead ‘to the detailed, sequential organization of conversation in its specificity’.

This brings me back to du Gay’s chapter. After distinguishing between theory in its scientific sense and theory in its priestly sense, du Gay goes on to make a number of telling observations about sociology’s inability to unite, to at least some degree, around its core object. Might it be, du Gay suggests (2009: 179), that too much energy is wasted on building a theoretical persona: ‘[T]he power of theory … is proportional to the allure of the persona it allows one to occupy. Its prestige and reach should not be underestimated.’ He goes on (2009: 180) to explore various ‘sociological consequences of “the moment of theory”’, particularly that by which ‘social constructionism … has often ended up akin to an all purpose, across the board formula, and, as such, has frequently evacuated that which it purports to analyse of any of its positivity’. He asks three searching questions of this way of being a sociologist.

First, do we actually learn anything positive about that which is subject to this theoretical exercise? Or is it the case that the social constructionist move is precisely designed to take away self-evidence from that which forms its object? Second, given that the same moves can be made on anything – robots, death, corporations, fish – what exactly is the status of the critical claim being made? Thirdly, why does deployment of the mantra ‘socially constructed’ … give the theorist any sort of advantage in the practice of revising something, compared with those who do not buy into the social constructionist programme, those who maintain a belief in ‘objectivity’, for example? (2009: 180; see also du Gay this volume)

That’s enough to give a flavour of du Gay’s argument. It is certainly enough to make one wonder how the editors could include his chapter without recognizing it as an attack on one of the organizing principles they bring to bear on the book. The answer to this last puzzle seems to be that they are so immersed in the idea that theory is the ideal cure for the malady from which sociology is suffering that their ears are blocked to du Gay’s criticisms of precisely their way of using theory. They allow themselves to hear some of what he is saying – ‘Du Gay … opens up questions about the limits of theory, and the problematic relation between theory (in this case certain forms of critical theory) and everyday understandings’ (Cooper et al., 2009c: 138) – but they make sure they hear it as if du Gay is inside the tent aiming out, not outside the tent aiming in:

Du Gay firmly locates his discussion of theory within the contemporary intellectual context and, in common with some of the work in the sociology of education discussed in the previous chapter, understands this as a turning away from theory. (2009c: 138)

Pyyhtinen is critical, commenting on merits and flaws in Simmel’s approach, and positioning it within the current field by drawing parallels between Simmel and more recent theorists. In this, his contribution exemplifies the transmission of theory in changing contexts discussed by du Gay. (King and Rettie, 2009: 195)

These sorts of positioning statements strongly suggest that the editors are not taking from du Gay’s chapter the clear message that is there to be taken: don’t let your carefully accumulated empirical knowledge grow up to be theory.

Consolidating the negative

Sociological Objects, all this is to say, is as much a golden opportunity squandered as it is a useful resource to help address the discipline’s fading relevance. Might it be that the editors, and most sociologists for that matter, simply do not regard the downgrading of the discipline’s core object as a problem? If that is the case, any readers who share their view might like to read the earlier essays in this special issue, especially that by Stephen Turner. But in case that is not enough, I can bolster my case for concern about sociology’s vulnerability on this score by highlighting two of Turner’s earlier assessments of the discipline’s difficulties (both contained in his 1994).

The context of these two pointedly bleak assessments is the challenge posed to him by some of the critics of his (1990) book with Jonathan Turner, The Impossible Science, especially Martin Bulmer and Charles Camic. In making the first assessment, Turner takes issue with Bulmer and Camic’s proposition ‘that the “ideas” of sociology’ had ‘significant influence’ on its development, that, for example, ‘big thinkers like W. I. Thomas … and Parsons invent big concepts and influence people, all of which leads to shared theoretical viewpoints and perspectives’. While he exempts ‘methodological innovations’ from the scope of his response – on the grounds that they ‘don’t usually have the form of “ideas”’, instead being transmitted as traditions over a period in which ‘there is a great deal of confusion, misunderstanding, and misapplication’ (1994: 49) – Turner pulls no other punches:

In general, ‘ideas’ have not been important in the history of sociology … Most of the ‘ideas’, explanatory moves, and even the ‘techniques’ of sociology are simple analogies, extensions of common sense … lying around waiting to be used. It is an old stereotype that sociology is in the business of restating the obvious in fancy lingo.… Unfortunately, the stereotype is largely true. (1994: 47)

Before I move to Turner’s second assessment, I remind the reader that this first one has a direct parallel in the Australian setting (discussed in Harley’s contribution), inasmuch as the historian W.K. Hancock, writing in 1954 and looking back to the 1920s, when sociology was dismissed as a separate subject area at the University of Melbourne, referred to the discipline as the ‘“mumbo-jumbo that was called sociology” … a mixture of “second-hand fact, disputable generalisations and a pretentious vocabulary”’ (Bourke, 1981: 47, quoting Hancock).

Turner sets up his second assessment with a point about the unintended effects of funding decisions:

Intellectual projects, like armies, march on their stomachs. The exact resources needed and the means of their use vary according to a number of contingencies that are local and historically limited, and the advantages to be derived from funding vary according to the competitive situation. The sums that Parsons got for his theoretical project were unprecedented and unique. They enabled him and his students to hold conferences, employ people to contribute to the project, and to publish books through The Free Press, a sweetheart arrangement. This created a kind of monopoly in the theory business. (1994: 54)

In this context, Turner addresses what he says is ‘the most interesting’ question that might be ‘posed by the strange history of funding in sociology’:

The most interesting question … is the historical question of the distinctive awfulness of sociology’s internecine squabbling, and the book’s [The Impossible Science’s] frank depiction of generations of bitter conflict between a quantitative ‘mainstream’ minority that would like to extirpate those who disagree with it and a largely anti-quantitative academic underclass that survives and persists in spite of the best efforts of the élite to reform or exclude them. The book served to explain this marriage made in hell in terms of the more or less self-conscious efforts of the various individuals involved in sociology and in funding sociology to get their way. (1994: 55)

Of course it might be said that the two bleak assessments I have drawn from Turner apply only to American sociology, not to the discipline in Britain, France, Germany and Australia. I will leave that for the reader to judge, but in defence of their wider application I remind the reader that two of the earlier essays in this issue (that by Bryan Turner and that by Harley) present evidence to the effect that sociology in America is far bigger and stronger than it is in any other country, to the extent that American sociology has considerable influence in most of these other countries. It seems to me that if sociology’s public relevance in America has been damaged by its failure to develop powerful ideas about society and by its internecine fighting, as Stephen Turner says it has, then surely it has been damaged even more by these problems in the countries where it is weaker and where American thinking has such an influence.

Conclusion: public relevance does not necessarily mean public sociology

In making the public relevance of sociology part of the theme of this special issue, I stress that I am not meaning to associate the arguments for greater public relevance contained in the issue with recent moves within the discipline for a very particular type of ‘public sociology’, particularly as it has been promoted by Michael Burawoy. I wish to use my conclusion to set out the main reason why this project is not the same as Burawoy’s.

In his 2004 ASA Presidential Address, ‘For Public Sociology’, Burawoy launched his campaign for public sociology. In the published version of the address (Burawoy, 2005), he argues that it is necessary to close ‘the growing gap between the sociological ethos and the world we study’ (2005: 259). Inasmuch as his address has sparked a still-growing debate (see esp. Turner, 2007b) his campaign is a success, at least within sociology. His published address is undoubtedly stimulating in treating sociology as a political project, one which aligns with the great political project that is modern western liberal-democracy (see also Turner, 2003), among other alignments. This is not to be sneezed at, echoing as it does the great sociology-as-political-project efforts of the likes of Franklin Giddings (1905; see also Turner, 2005) and Charles Ellwood (1915; see also Turner, 2007a). However, Burawoy’s campaign is hamstrung by the fact that he works with a very particular, largely a-historical, naturalistic understanding of the public sphere (for my detailed argument against this understanding of the public sphere and in favour of an alternative account, see Wickham, 2010). In doing this, he seeks public relevance only in moral terms, which to my way of thinking is an unduly restrictive type of public relevance.

From the outset Burawoy rides a high horse. Here are six examples:

Burawoy’s position is not, of course, all that unusual in the modern humanities and social sciences. It is a position which never stops condemning any finite, temporal human activity which accepts the constraints of life under the protection of modern western states, a position which makes it imperative that its advocates criticize all perceived imperfections in contemporary arrangements. In this way, in promoting sociology’s relevance in the moral terms he employs, Burawoy is preaching to the choir, appealing only to those who is share his view that the world is going to hell in a handcart. For the great majority of the populations of modern western countries, being told by Burawoy and his public sociology that they are imperfect if they do not join him in his political values and his moral campaigning is highly unlikely to attract them to the discipline as a whole. Why would they pay attention to a discipline which lectures them in this way when economics invites them in to its complex but fascinating debates about the way the wealth they either share or want to share is created (and/or lost)?

If it is to regain the public relevance it once had, sociology needs to emulate economics in regularly and openly debating its core object, it does not need Burawoy’s moral salvos.