I'm thinking about picking up a sociology class or two, or maybe even picking the subject as a minor or maybe a second major. Does praxeology or Austrian economists have any insight on sociology that I should be made aware of?
Political Atheists Blog
Praxeological Insight: Ask yourself these q's:
1. How much are you paying for these sociology courses? Are you taking them for entertainment, or to increase your market value and/or entrepeneurial ability? Would you be better served reading some sociology books on your own and taking courses in something that wil make you money and requires a teacher and classroom experience?
2. Do the pretty girls go to sociology classes, or something like art?
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
I get half off tuition and I live/eat at my mom's house. Basically, I go to a four year public university for the price of a two year community college. Also, I need a certain number of credits in order to get any bachelor's degree from my school. I could fit both econ and sociology and be within that requirement.
krazy kaju: I'm thinking about picking up a sociology class or two, or maybe even picking the subject as a minor or maybe a second major. Does praxeology or Austrian economists have any insight on sociology that I should be made aware of?
Really, both economics and sociology are branches of praxeology. One is the study of society (social interaction) and the other is the study of economization. Their connected because of the division of labour. The full title of Mises`Socialism is Socialism: An Economics and Sociological Analysis because the two subjects are inseperably intertwined.
If you`re picking up a sociology class, you`re gonna basically get Marxism reloaded for the 21st century, where instead of rigorous, axiomatic-deductive analysis, you learn how to analyze everything according to 3 arbitrary paradigms: class-conflict, social-functional, and symbolic-individual.
If you want to learn anything about sociology, It would be better to go to the library and read original works by Marx, Durkheim, and other cranks, than it would be to actually go to a class, and learn a bunch of 20th century PC BS.
You might enjoy reading Max Weber's sociological works. Many with an austrian bent enjoy them, and I fail to see how it could possibly hurt you in your training as an economist.
I suggest you also read the works of Stanislav Andreski, who is probably the best Weber-style sociologist. He is even critical of the approach of most sociologists (see his work Social Sciences as Sorcery). He has a great interest in coercion (as an Austrian would use the term), and seems critical of both despotism and democracy. At times, however, one notes that he does not have a great understanding of economics - but luckily this rarely impairs his investigations.