Savage Mike, Waitkus Nora
Department of Sociology, London School of Economics, London, UK.
International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics, London, UK.
Br J Sociol. 2021 Jan;72(1):39-51. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12817.
This paper applauds the vision and originality of Piketty's Capital and Ideology. We draw attention to the distinctive methodological perspective which he adopts, which we liken to call "social science engineering." This allows a problem oriented perspective on long-term global social change which sidesteps siloed disciplinary debates in social science and history about the meaning of modernity, the rise of capitalism, the formation of social groups, and the primacy of nations. We bring out how his theory of property permits him to take forward his overarching insight that economic growth leads to wealth accumulation. This, therefore, challenges long standing sociological perspectives by insisting that modernity is a conservative, rather than a revolutionary and transformative process. We build on this essential contribution by noting some areas where his work can push forward even further, notably that his focus on shifting relativities obscures qualitative historical changes, and more particularly means his analysis of the 20th century is not as provocative as that of the 19th century.
本文赞赏皮凯蒂的《资本与意识形态》的视野和原创性。我们提请注意他所采用的独特方法论视角，我们将其称为“社会科学工程”。这使得能够从问题导向的角度看待长期的全球社会变革，从而避开了社会科学和历史中关于现代性的意义、资本主义的兴起、社会群体的形成以及国家的首要地位等孤立的学科辩论。我们阐述了他的财产理论如何使他能够推进其总体见解，即经济增长导致财富积累。因此，这通过坚持现代性是一个保守的过程，而非革命性和变革性的过程，对长期以来的社会学观点提出了挑战。我们在这一重要贡献的基础上，指出他的作品可以进一步推进的一些领域，特别是他对相对变化的关注掩盖了质的历史变化，更具体地说，这意味着他对20世纪的分析不如对19世纪的分析那样具有启发性。
