7/01/2004

Social Change VS Economics In a Workshop

This article really made me interested because it is good stuff to know in order to understand what is going on in the world. This is an artical from The Institute for Humane Studies, "http://www.theihs.org/subcategory.php/38.html?menuid=5". It describes a workshop at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA that has many perspectives, such as the relationship between social, political, and economic institutions.

As I learned in class, "economics is the study of how human beings coordinate their wants and desires, given the decision-making mechanisms, social customs, and political realities of the society." Economics is strongly related to many aspects of life, so from a different point of view, like social institutions, we might be able to discover new applications for economics. In this workshop, they are focusing on social change because the invitation says, "what we severely lack is a theory of social change. Our inability to understand the basic mechanisms of social change is evident in practical application." We really do not pay attention to how changes in society happen. So, we do not understand how social change applies to economics. However, we need to know how social change and economics apply to our lives in order to live comfortabl

1 comment:

Dr. Tufte said...

The differences between social sciences are largely about how they view the response of individuals and groups to outside stimulus.

Economics argues that social change occurs as individuals figure out optimal ways to respond to stimulus. Sociology (for example) argues that our responses to stimulus are conditioned by the society we live in currently, rather than by optimal behavior.