You know that joke about the cranky restaraunt customer? “The food is terrible – and the servings are so small!” That summarizes the relationship between economics and sociology. Here’s a few observations:
- Max Weber, an economic historian, defects from the mainstream of the day and becomes a founding figure of sociology.
- Talcott Parsons, a Harvard economist, defects from the mainstream of his day to become a towering figure in the sociological profession.
- Gary Becker, a neo-classical economist, makes it cool for economists in the 1960s to study stuff like race and marriage, long as you call people’s choices “taste” and “preferences.” Gets a Nobel prize for doing so.
- In the 1990s, Steve Levitt becomes the poster child of economics by hooking up with sociologists and policy folks to do theory lite applied stats on sociological topics, like crime.
- After Levitt, economists stampede to sociology and churn out paper after paper…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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