On Sociology - As An "Abuse Of Reason"

Today is Margaret Thatcher's 85th birthday. As Prime Minister of Great Britain, she famously declared: "There is no such thing called society." This post is written in full support of her view.

If you visit Delhi University, you might notice that right opposite the Delhi School of Economics stands the Delhi School of Sociology. From the former emerged Amartya Sen and Manmohan Singh - both calling for State "education" for the sheeple. And, from the latter, comes Jean Dreze, Professor Emeritus, great champion of NREGA ditch-digging, "right to food" and other statist schemes. Indeed, Dreze has co-authored many books with Amartya Sen; they are bosom buddies. I have just discussed the "corruption in Economic Science" (in two parts, here and here). Today, let me say something about Sociology.

Jean Dreze is French - and Sociology originated in France. The man who invented this subject is August Comte, considered by many to be a "madman." Comte was a student of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825), one of the world's first "socialists" - and his great idea was to vest all Property in the State, and have the State directed by industrial chiefs and "men of science." As to what exactly was the "science of society" Saint-Simon had no real answer. This was what August Comte (1798-1857) served up to humanity. Comte called his science "positivism" - and, with this epistemological principle, Sociology was born. The central tenet of positivism is that human behaviour is objectively measurable. Thus Emile Durkheim, another French sociologist, studied suicide by examining statistical suicide rates! So, the idea was that society would be subjected to measurement, and these sociologists / social scientists would then run the whole of society in a scientific manner.

Quite naturally, a science that offered so much power to those who mastered it spread rapidly. In Vienna a school of "logical positivism" emerged - and they were enemies of the Austrian School economists like Mises, also in Vienna at the time. But positivism entered Economics too - and no less an economist than Milton Friedman has upheld positivism as THE method of Economics. Positivism entered Law - and stood opposed to all those who believed in "natural law." Positivism entered Psychology, through "psychometrics" - and also in the works of "behaviourists" like John B Watson and BF Skinner, who, like Comte, thought they had found ways of controlling society and even re-making it. Megalomaniacs, all.

But what is "society"? And how is society to be studied and understood? Here again, it was the great Carl Menger (1840-1921) who provided the answer, and thereby lit the path for all his worthy followers. After his path-breaking Principles of Economics (1871), Menger wrote just one more book - and this time it was on the Methodology of the Social Sciences (1883). The key question Menger put forward was this:

How can it be that institutions which serve the common welfare and are extremely significant for its development come into being without a ‘common will’ directed towards their establishment?

It is this question that establishes the central difference between all the positivists and the Austrian School economists. To positivists, society is inert and what matters are the commands given to it. Social scientists measure society and come up with the "correct" commands. Central economic planners do this - with all their data. Sociologists do this - after Comte and Durkheim. And so do lawyers who view law in the positivist light - as "commands of the sovereign." Note that Professor Jean Dreze of the Delhi School of Sociology is relying on Professor Suresh Tendulkar of the Delhi School of Economics to correctly "measure" poverty. Bah!

What Menger and his followers - true scientists, all - established is that society produces a lot on its own, because of the workings of INDIVIDUALS. Language, money, markets, and even law have emerged from within society, without any "common will" directing things, without any commands from on high. The real mystery we must investigate is how this happens. How do the individuals who make up society "act"? I have written a newspaper column describing some of these issues, here.

To truly understand the "madness" of Saint-Simon and August Comte, I suggest a slim book by Friedrich Hayek called The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason. It is perhaps Hayek's greatest contribution to the history of ideas. The title is dramatic - and apt. What positivists parade as "science" is nothing but the "abuse of reason." It is extremely dangerous. And our universities are full of it.

Another recommended read: My brief article on why the political value of "community" is unsuitable to a market society, which is individualistic. This article takes the Hayekian argument one step forward.