Sociology and Classical Liberalism

Daniel B. Klein () and Lotta Stern ()
Additional contact information
Lotta Stern: Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Postal: Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockhom, Sweden, http://www.sofi.su.se

No 81, Ratio Working Papers from The Ratio Institute

Abstract: We advocate the development of a classical-liberal character within professional sociology. The American Sociological Association (ASA) is taken as representative of professional sociology in the United States. We review the ASA’s activities and organizational statements, to show the association’s leftist character. Internal criticism is often very uneasy about leftist domination of the field. We present survey results establishing that, in voting and in policy views, the ASA membership is mostly left-wing and devoid of classical liberalism. We sketch some ideas showing that sociology needs classical liberalism, and classical liberalism needs sociology.

Keywords: sociology; American Sociological Association; ideology; policy views; classical liberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 A14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
Date: 2005-12-20
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Published in The Independent Review, 2006, pages 37-52.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ratio.se/pdf/wp/dk_ls_sociology.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0081

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Ratio Working Papers from The Ratio Institute
Address: The Ratio Institute, P.O. Box 5095, SE-102 42 Stockholm, Sweden
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Niclas Berggren ().