Milan Zafirovski
Biographic Data
| ID | 245313 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Milan Zafirovski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Milan |
| FAMILY NAME | Zafirovski |
| SIGNATURE | ZAFIROVSKI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of North Texas |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6823-8977 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 104 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 119 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 104 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Neoclassical economics’ basis in marginal utility theory reexamined—based on marginal postulates without discussion
The paper reexamines early neoclassical economics' adoption of and basis in marginal utility theory. It especially explores whether and to what extent early neoclassical economics in respect of its theory of value and prices accepted and was based on marginal utility theory without discussion. The paper first reconsiders the relationship between early neoclassical economics' theory of value and prices and marginal utility theory. It identifies ce…
The Theory of the Collective Unconscious and Social Coercion: Theoretical Extension and Empirical Application
Déjà vu all over again? A model and indexes of proto-fascism for Western and comparable societies
Does Democracy Affect Income Distribution? Preliminary Evidence for OECD Countries
The article poses and attempts to address the question of whether, how, and to what extent political democracy influences income distribution and, more broadly, economic inequality in current Western and comparable societies such as OECD countries. It first reviews the sociological and related literature concerning the relations between political democracy and economic inequality, including income and wealth distribution. Considering theoretical …
Economic inequality and political democracy reconsidered: Trends, links and effects in 36 OECD countries, 2006–2017
This paper focuses on the recent trends in economic inequality and political democracy and their possible links. Generally, it explores how economic inequality and political democracy are linked. Particularly, it examines the effects of inequality on democracy and thus political, civil and individual freedoms. It treats economic inequality as one of the manifold determinants of democracy, and the latter as among the varied effects of the former. …
Culture and Ascetic Protestantism: Cultural Conditions Impacting Calvinism’s Development
The article examines the relationship between cultural phenomena and the emergence and expansion of ascetic Protestantism. More specifically, it explores the cultural roots and conditions of original, early Calvinism, as distinguished from its own influences and ramifications in culture and society in general mostly emphasized in the current sociological literature. Calvinism is therefore treated not only as a conditioning and explanatory factor …
From Antagonism to Fusion: Military and Industrial Society Fused in Militarist Capitalism
How strong is the democratic defence of 'defence spending?' Consequence of military expenditure for democracy in OECD countries
The article identifies and seeks to abridge a gap in the literature consisting of the problem of relations between military expenditure and democracy, especially the consequences of the first for the second. It specifically investigates the consequences that military expenditure produces for democracy among contemporary Western and comparable societies such as OECD countries during 2006-2017. It first surveys the relevant pertinent literature abo…
Economics and social stratification: Classical-neoclassical economists’ thought on class structure and related phenomena
The paper re-examines the approach of conventional economics to social stratification, in particular class structure and distribution of wealth. It argues that conventional economics generally tends to assume an ambivalent, dualistic position on social stratification, especially class structure and distribution, expressed in a dual approach to the matter. The first approach consists in neglecting or downplaying stratification, plus treating it as…
Toward a new political democracy index: Construction, validation, and calculation for individual societies and types of society
The article proposes a new composite index of political democracy. It first constructs, elaborates, and rationalizes a comprehensive democracy index composed of 20 indicators and covariates. It then describes data on the democracy indicators and their sources and properties, including their metrics and range or scale which it makes uniform and detailed for precision and discrimination in index computation and estimation. It reports the results of…
Consequences of income concentration for democratic processes in contemporary Western and comparable societies: Evidence for OECD countries, 2017–2019
The study focuses on the relation of economic inequality and political democracy, specifically exploring the democratic consequences of income concentration. It places income concentration among a composite of factors of democracy and considers democracy within a set of results of economic inequality. The study first surveys how the relationship of income and other economic inequality to democracy is theorized and researched in sociology and econ…
Capitalist Dictatorship: A Study of Its Social Systems, Dimensions, Forms and Indicators
Milan Zafirovski identifies and investigates the resurgence of capitalist dictatorship in contemporary society, especially after 2016. This book introduces the concept of capitalist dictatorship to the academic audience for the first time. It examines the capitalist dictatorship as a total social system composed of specific systems such as a coercive economy, repressive polity, illiberal civil society and irrational culture in contrast to liberal…
Saints and Soviets Again — Inventing the ‘New Man’ by American Capitalism and Soviet Socialism Revisited
The paper argues and demonstrates that American capitalism, or conservatism, and Soviet communism show a convergence on the invention of the ‘new man’ as a novel human type. It then elaborates and specifies the main characteristics of the invented type. The paper constructs an index of the American and Soviet ‘new man’ composed of certain indicators of the latter as its components. It presents the results of an empirical analysis consisting of nu…
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Political Power: Sociopolitical Conditions Underlying the Development of Calvinism
This article reconsiders the societal conditions determining ascetic Protestantism such as Calvinism during its early development, as distinguished from its later effects on society. It argues that a multiplicity of social conditions impacted the rise and expansion of Calvinism. These involve political, religious, cultural and economic conditions of the rise of Calvinism. They indicate the original societal conditioning of Calvinism, as distinct …
Economics in sociology? Original economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociologists
This paper explores the presence and consideration of economics in sociology, specifically its classical version. It identifies certain original and independent economic theories, concepts and approaches in classical sociological theory as central and its derivations, implications and extensions of economics as peripheral. The paper argues and demonstrates that classical sociology is far from being the science of noneconomic or irrational phenome…
Capitalist Dictatorship: A Study of Its Social Systems, Dimensions, Forms and Indicators
The residue of theocracy in contemporary democracies: A comparative study
The article re-examines residues of theocracy in contemporary western and related democracies such as OECD countries. It outlines a model of theocracy composed of four elements. These elements are, first, extreme religiosity and religious fanaticism and closure; second, suppression of knowledge and scientific progress and perpetuation of anti-science, irrationalism; third, a state-favoured Church as the agent of political power, coercion, repress…
Puritanism
The Happiness of Nations: A Comparative Analysis of OECD Countries
This paper reexamines the concept and determinants of happiness within global society involving Western and comparable societies such as OECD countries. The review of the literature suggests that it leaves a certain void with respect to the bearing of types of contemporary societies on happiness and its societal conditions. The paper argues that a particular type of these societies, denoted as the combination of welfare capitalism and liberal dem…
Reopening the Black Box of Capitalist Dictatorship: Indicators and Aggregate Indexes for OECD Countries
Indicators of Militarism and Democracy in Comparative Context: How Militaristic Tendencies Influence Democratic Processes in OECD Countries 2010–2016
Societal coercion and path-dependence: Punishment and Puritanism in contemporary societies
The article analyzes the connections between societal coercion and punishment in contemporary Western and related societies and a particular form of religion, namely Puritanism and its theocracy. It argues that Puritanism and its theocracy tend to determine the level of coercion and punishment in the US and hence make the latter path-dependent on the former. It traces the historical path from Puritanism in the past to coercion and punishment in t…
Always Rational Choice Theory? Lessons from Conventional Economics and Their Relevance and Potential Benefits for Contemporary Sociologists
Collective‐unconscious apologetics of plutocracy and oligarchy: Chicago economics' ideological preferences revealed by the sociology of knowledge
The article places and analyzes the Chicago school of economics within the framework of Mannheim's sociology of knowledge or ideas that posits and documents social determinants of ideas and ideologies. This framework reveals the Chicago school as the explicit or implicit ideology and utopia of plutocracy, oligarchy and aristocracy in the sense of apologetics of these social classes and/or systems, thus being the class form of ‘apologetic economic…
Economic Perspectives
Classical political economy is the earliest stage and school in the evolution of economic science from the late eighteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century, since Adam Smith the founder. It is the science of the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of wealth. It has two related branches: pure economics as the theory of a market economy and social economics or economic sociology as an analysis of the institutiona…
Spencer is dead, long live Spencer: Individualism, Holism, and the Problem of Norms
The debate between the advocates of sociological individualism and those of holism has been pervasive in the development of social theory. This debate is often situated in the false problems of sociology, since it is seen as a particular form of the perennial and irresolvable dilemma between social nominalism and realism, as well as between freedom and determinism. Nevertheless, the debate is far from over within contemporary sociology and other …
Economic Sociology in Retrospect and Prospect: In Search of its Identity within Economics and Sociology
Theory and research in the field of economic sociology have seen steady advancements in recent years. Economic sociology has become a legitimate branch of sociology as well as of economics. Nonetheless, the treatment of economic sociology in both modern economics and sociology leaves much to be desired. Various formal-terminological confusions and theoretical-substantive misconceptions are still present in the field. The present article advances …
The Rational Choice Generalization of Neoclassical Economics Reconsidered: Any Theoretical Legitimation for Economic Imperialism
The article reconsiders the generalization of neoclassical economics by modern rational choice theory. Hence, it reexamines the possible theoretical grounds or lack thereof within neoclassical economics for economic imperialism implied in much of rational choice theory. Some indicative instances of rational choice theory's generalization of neoclassical economics are reviewed. The main portion of the article addresses the question as to whether n…
Economic Sociology Reformulated: The Interface Between Economics and Sociology
Previous theoretical and empirical research on economic sociology leaves much to be desired in terms of consistently defining the agenda and objectives of the discipline As a result, economic sociology often appears to lack a clearly defined mission and purpose This is epitomized by various failures to establish adequate epistemological relations of the proper realm of economic sociology with those of economics and sociology, and especially with …
Unification of Sociological Theory by the Rational Choice Model: Conceiving the Relationship Between Economics and Sociology
This paper reconsiders the possibility for unification of sociological theory by the rational choice model. This is induced by the claims of rational choice theorists that extending this model from economics to sociology can be conducive to establishing a unifying paradigm and method to be given `paradigmatic privilege' within sociology. The outcome of such an extension of the economic approach has been `sociological rational choice theory' or `r…
An Alternative Sociological Perspective on Economic Value: Price Formation as a Social Process
Parsonian Economic Sociology: Bridges to Contemporary Economics
This article focuses on Parsonian economic sociology and its actual or potential bridges and contributions to contemporary economics. These bridges are methodological or epistemological and theoretical or substantive ones. A relevant instance of the methodological bridges is socioeconomic holism, epitomized in the systems approach to economy and society. An important case of the theoretical bridges is sociological institutionalism. The holistic s…
Max Weber's Analysis of Marginal Utility Theory and Psychology Revisited: Latent Propositions in Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Economics
Research Article| September 01 2001 Max Weber's Analysis of Marginal Utility Theory and Psychology Revisited: Latent Propositions in Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Economics Milan Zafirovski Milan Zafirovski Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2001) 33 (3): 437–458. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-33-3-437 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Da…
Economic distribution as a social process
This article examines the role of extramarket and other noneconomic variables in the pricing of the factors of production or income distribution. The documented presence and salience of premarket variables in factor valuation makes economic distribution an eminently social process. In particular, even under a modern free-market economy, income and wealth distribution represents a process of institutionalization through the creation and imposition…
A neglected gap in the Weber thesis? The long economic lag of capitalism from Protestantism
This article identifies and explains a certain previously undetected or downplayed analytical problem in Max Weber's thesis arising from a causal link between Protestantism, above all Calvinism, and the emergence and expansion of modern capitalism as an economic 'spirit' and system. There is a manifest time gap or historical distance between original Calvinism and modern capitalism spanning several centuries. More specifically, there is an 'econo…
Calvinist Predestination and the Spirit of Capitalism: The Religious Argument of the Weber Thesis Reexamined
Protestantism and Authoritarianism: Weber's Secondary Problem
The Influence of Sociology on Economics: Selected Themes and Instances from Classical Sociological Theory
This article presents selected pertinent instances of the influence of (especially classical) sociological theory on economics. Its explicit justification and goal is to detect and illustrate the almost unknown, ignored or dismissed bearing of sociological theory on its economic counterpart. Its implicit justification is given by the epistemological principle of the unity of knowledge, especially of social science, serving as an analytical framew…
Parsons and Sorokin: A Comparison of the Founding of American Sociological Theory Schools
This article compares the main elements of Parsons' and Sorokin's sociological work in the context of the formation and development of an American school of social theory during the 1930s-1950s. Of these elements, four are meta-theoretical, and four substantive or theoretical. Included in the first group are the problems of methodology, selection, convergence versus divergence, and interpretation. The possibility of social dynamics, the conceptio…
Extending the rational choice model from the economy to society
That the extension of the rational choice model beyond the economy to all society can finally lead to integration of social theory is often claimed by the model’s advocates. The underlying assumption is that this model is valid for both the economy and society, in the form of an economic approach to, or a utilitarian paradigm of, all social behaviour. The meta-theoretical presupposition or injunction that agents are (should be) profit-seekers or …
What is Really Rational Choice? Beyond the Utilitarian Concept of Rationality
Hailed by its exponents as a unifying paradigm for social theory and dismissed by its critiques as an imperialistic intrusion into sociology coming from neoclassical economics, rational choice theory is one of the most significant and controversial developments in contemporary sociological theory. This report reconsiders the degree of adequacy of rational choice theory for modern sociology. The report focuses its attention on the concept of ratio…
Does Democracy Affect Income Distribution? Preliminary Evidence for OECD Countries
The article poses and attempts to address the question of whether, how, and to what extent political democracy influences income distribution and, more broadly, economic inequality in current Western and comparable societies such as OECD countries. It first reviews the sociological and related literature concerning the relations between political democracy and economic inequality, including income and wealth distribution. Considering theoretical …
Economic Perspectives
Classical political economy is the earliest stage and school in the evolution of economic science from the late eighteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth century, since Adam Smith the founder. It is the science of the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of wealth. It has two related branches: pure economics as the theory of a market economy and social economics or economic sociology as an analysis of the institutiona…
Toward Economic Sociology/Socio-Economics? Sociological Components in Contemporary Economics and Implications for Sociology
The Weber Thesis of Calvinism and Capitalism-Its Various Versions and Their "Fate" in Social Science: The Weber Thesis of Calvinism
The paper identifies and examines various multiple renditions of the so-called Weber Thesis of an historical association and convergence between ascetic Protestantism, above all Calvinism, and the emergence and development of modern capitalism as an economic spirit and system. Specifically, it detects at least four different versions and formulations or interpretations, thus casting doubt in the common view of the Weber Thesis as a single and mon…
Rational Choice Requiem: The Decline of an Economic Paradigm and its Implications for Sociology
Sociological dimensions in classical/neoclassical economics: Conceptions of social economics and economic sociology
This article posits that traditional economics contains relevant sociological dimensions and that these consist primarily of conceptions and elements of social economics or economic sociology. On this premise, it explores these sociological dimensions in the form of conceptions and elements of social economics and/or economic sociology in classical political economy and neoclassical economics. The article identifies explicit conceptions of social…
Convergent origins, divergent destinations: Sociology's Contributions and Connections to Economics in a Historical and Interdisciplinary Framework
English This article explores selected significant instances of sociology's contributions and connections to economics. These contributions are framed and analyzed within a historical and interdisciplinary setting of the originally common or convergent roots (Enlightenment philosophical rationalism and liberalism) and early co-developments, and yet the subsequently (especially since the 1930s) divergent trajectories and destinations of sociology …
Is sociology the science of the irrational? Conceptions of rationality in sociological theory
Paradigms for analysis of social institutions: A case for sociological institutionalism
This paper makes a case for sociological institutionalism, particularly its Veblenian variant or connection. This is attempted against a background of the surge of renewed interest in analyzing institutions within modern social science, especially economics and sociology. This is indicated by the emergence of the new institutional economics as the (modified) neoclassical approach to institutions and the revival of economic sociology with its conc…
Economic Sociology Reformulated: The Interface Between Economics and Sociology
Previous theoretical and empirical research on economic sociology leaves much to be desired in terms of consistently defining the agenda and objectives of the discipline As a result, economic sociology often appears to lack a clearly defined mission and purpose This is epitomized by various failures to establish adequate epistemological relations of the proper realm of economic sociology with those of economics and sociology, and especially with …
Public Choice Theory for Political Sociology
Profit-Making as Social Action: An Alternative Social-economic Perspective
This article reconsiders the status of profit-making in neoclassical economics. This reconsideration is based on a social-economic perspective as distinguished from the “pure” economic approach used by neoclassical theory. This paper argues that this perspective is more adequate, since it endeavors to do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon. While the economic approach views profit-making as a purely economic activity insulated from the so…
The ‘Unbearable Lightness’ of the Economic Approach to Economic Behavior in the Social Setting: Rational Action and the Sociology of the Economy
This article entails endeavours to properly conceive the theoretical‐methodoà logical relations between sociology of the economy or economic sociology and the economic approach to human behaviour or rational action theory. These endeavors are induced by recent proposals for an economic approach to economic sociology and other conflations between the two disciplines. Such proposals exemplify the tendency of rational action theorists to dissolve ec…
Political behavior in the social milieu: Toward rehabilitation of the classical tradition of political sociology
(1999). Political behavior in the social milieu: Toward rehabilitation of the classical tradition of political sociology. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 9, The Future for Professions: Current Analytical Challenges, pp. 41-73
Economic Sociology in Retrospect and Prospect: In Search of its Identity within Economics and Sociology
Theory and research in the field of economic sociology have seen steady advancements in recent years. Economic sociology has become a legitimate branch of sociology as well as of economics. Nonetheless, the treatment of economic sociology in both modern economics and sociology leaves much to be desired. Various formal-terminological confusions and theoretical-substantive misconceptions are still present in the field. The present article advances …
What is Really Rational Choice? Beyond the Utilitarian Concept of Rationality
Hailed by its exponents as a unifying paradigm for social theory and dismissed by its critiques as an imperialistic intrusion into sociology coming from neoclassical economics, rational choice theory is one of the most significant and controversial developments in contemporary sociological theory. This report reconsiders the degree of adequacy of rational choice theory for modern sociology. The report focuses its attention on the concept of ratio…
Unification of Sociological Theory by the Rational Choice Model: Conceiving the Relationship Between Economics and Sociology
This paper reconsiders the possibility for unification of sociological theory by the rational choice model. This is induced by the claims of rational choice theorists that extending this model from economics to sociology can be conducive to establishing a unifying paradigm and method to be given `paradigmatic privilege' within sociology. The outcome of such an extension of the economic approach has been `sociological rational choice theory' or `r…
Latent Theoretical Convergence upon a Pluralist Conception of Economic Action: Adam Smith and Max Weber
An Alternative Sociological Perspective on Economic Value: Price Formation as a Social Process
Economic distribution as a social process
This article examines the role of extramarket and other noneconomic variables in the pricing of the factors of production or income distribution. The documented presence and salience of premarket variables in factor valuation makes economic distribution an eminently social process. In particular, even under a modern free-market economy, income and wealth distribution represents a process of institutionalization through the creation and imposition…
The Rational Choice Generalization of Neoclassical Economics Reconsidered: Any Theoretical Legitimation for Economic Imperialism
The article reconsiders the generalization of neoclassical economics by modern rational choice theory. Hence, it reexamines the possible theoretical grounds or lack thereof within neoclassical economics for economic imperialism implied in much of rational choice theory. Some indicative instances of rational choice theory's generalization of neoclassical economics are reviewed. The main portion of the article addresses the question as to whether n…
Extending the rational choice model from the economy to society
That the extension of the rational choice model beyond the economy to all society can finally lead to integration of social theory is often claimed by the model’s advocates. The underlying assumption is that this model is valid for both the economy and society, in the form of an economic approach to, or a utilitarian paradigm of, all social behaviour. The meta-theoretical presupposition or injunction that agents are (should be) profit-seekers or …
Spencer is dead, long live Spencer: Individualism, Holism, and the Problem of Norms
The debate between the advocates of sociological individualism and those of holism has been pervasive in the development of social theory. This debate is often situated in the false problems of sociology, since it is seen as a particular form of the perennial and irresolvable dilemma between social nominalism and realism, as well as between freedom and determinism. Nevertheless, the debate is far from over within contemporary sociology and other …
Sociology of economics or sociology of economy? theoretical-methodological arguments for sociological economics
This paper makes a proposal for reintroducing sociological or social economics into contemporary economic science. Such a reintroduction is proposed to be substantive, by analyzing the social structuring of the economy, and formal, by including sociological/social economics in the current (JEL) classification system of economic disciplines (code A.15). Both epistemological and ontological arguments can be presented to support the proposal. Episte…
Administration and Society: Beyond Public Choice
This paper involves an attempt at reconsidering public choice theory, with reference to its pertinence for public administration. The impetus for such reconsideration has been supplied by the claims of public choice theorists that their theory, as the economics of politics, is superior to its alternatives in political science and sociology. The Weberian theory of bureaucratic administration or bureaucracy has been a special target of public choic…
Reexamining economic sociology: Beyond rational choice reductionism
Max Weber's Analysis of Marginal Utility Theory and Psychology Revisited: Latent Propositions in Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Economics
Research Article| September 01 2001 Max Weber's Analysis of Marginal Utility Theory and Psychology Revisited: Latent Propositions in Economic Sociology and the Sociology of Economics Milan Zafirovski Milan Zafirovski Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2001) 33 (3): 437–458. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-33-3-437 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Da…
The economic approach to human behaviour under scrutiny: An Overview of Arguments for the Autonomy of Social Action
The article reviews and re-examines some arguments against the treatment of social action within the economic approach as an extension of economic behaviour/rationality and thus against its denial of the specific, irreducible nature of the extra-economic. A major argument is that social action is a sui generis phenomenon that cannot be reduced with theoretical impunity to its economic modalities. Social action is characterized by substantial auto…
Parsons and Sorokin: A Comparison of the Founding of American Sociological Theory Schools
This article compares the main elements of Parsons' and Sorokin's sociological work in the context of the formation and development of an American school of social theory during the 1930s-1950s. Of these elements, four are meta-theoretical, and four substantive or theoretical. Included in the first group are the problems of methodology, selection, convergence versus divergence, and interpretation. The possibility of social dynamics, the conceptio…
The Spectacle of American Conservatism: A Quantum Leap Into the Darkness of Authoritarianism
The paper attempts to do justice to the complexities involved in the relations between a market economy, democratic polity, and free society on the one hand, and social conservatism on the other. This attempt is undertaken given various simplifications and conflations committed by the conventional wisdom especially in the U.S. One of these is the untenable equation of economic conservatism or the laissez-faire economy with a free society. Another…
Income inequality and social institutions: Beyond the Kuznets curve and economic determinism
The paper outlines and examines a social‐institutional conception of income inequality or economic distribution. The fundamental proposition of this conception is that income inequality/distribution is far from being the outcome of the operation of strictly market laws or economic forces but rather one of institutional arrangements or social structures. Of the latter particularly important have shown to be the institutional structure of the econo…
Exchange, Action, and Social Structure: Elements of Economic Sociology
Introduction An Overview of Economic Sociology Applying a Sociological Approach to Economic Exchange Economic Exchange and Social Motivations The Political Structuration of Economic Exchange The Cultural Constitution of Economic Exchange The Institutional Organization of Labor Markets (Income Distribution) The Social Construction of Exchange (Business) Cycles Economic Exchange in Comparative Social Systems Exchange, Economic Development, and Soci…
Paths of the Weberian–Austrian Interconnection
The Rational Choice Approach to Human Studies: A Reexamination
Sociology (82 works) · Economics (77 works) · Law (65 works) · Political science (63 works) · Economic Theory and Institutions (57 works) · Positive economics (53 works) · Neoclassical economics (49 works) · Politics (47 works) · Social science (43 works) · Epistemology (41 works)