Which school is more influential than Chicago School?

In the long history of hundreds of years, the Austrian School and the Chicago School sometimes opposed each other, sometimes cooperated with each other, and were also enemies and friends, with mutual achievements. These two schools are quite different in monetary theory, economic cycle theory, government policy and economic methodology. Sometimes, the scholars of the two schools disagree on the economists they both like. Although there are many differences, in the severe period of ideological struggle, these two schools have played a successful role in developing classical free market economics and countering the criticism of capitalism. At the same time, economists from both schools have won the Nobel Prize in Economics for their research achievements.

Chicago school:

1933, Parker retired shortly after returning to China. Parker's retirement is not only the end of his academic career, but also the beginning of the decline of Chicago School. This decline and subsequent rise of Parsons' structural functionalism is a classic case of thomas kuhn's scientific revolution or paradigm shift of sociological theory.

The analysis of the reasons for the decline of Chicago School can be used as the research theme of "Sociology", because we can find the social and institutional background that determines the emergence and development of sociology. It should be said that the main reasons for the decline of Chicago School after 1935 are various: including the changes in the whole social background of the United States, after the initial wave of industrialization, the immigration tide in the United States has declined, urban life including Chicago has become more or less orderly, and people's marginalization has begun to decrease; Including the rise of sociological forces in other schools. For example, the Sociology Department of Harvard University founded by Sorokin rose abruptly after the war because of Parsons' theoretical achievements and Samuel Stover's contribution to methods, while the social theorist Merton and the quantification master Radas Feld also formed such a challenging academic corner in Columbia University. It also includes the problems of the sociology department of the University of Chicago itself. After the older generation of sociologists quit one after another, from the mid-1930s, especially after the Second World War, their students kept flowing to other schools (Christopher is a doctor of sociology at the University of Chicago), and the relationship between teachers was tense. Two consecutive disputes for department heads (195 1 and 1956) have made brummer, Riesman and Waugh the backbone. It also includes that American sociology has changed from Zimmer's humanitarianism and explanatory tradition to high quantification and statistics, and American sociologists' interest in social psychology, which is generally cherished by Chicago sociologists, has also begun to decline; Finally, the direct cause of the decline of Chicago sociology is the rebellion of 1935 professional sociologists. Sociologists from several Ivy League universities in the east, including Parsons, have formed a group of young sociologists, who are ideologically divorced from the tradition of American pragmatic sociology represented by the Chicago School and institutionally divorced from the organizational constraints of Chicago. The symbol of their rebellion is the birth of another magazine, American Sociological Review (ASR). The emergence of new powerful groups in eastern Harvard University and Columbia University ended the decades-long rule of Chicago sociologists over the American Journal of Sociology (AJS) and the American Social Society.

As the first sociology department in the world, the contribution of Chicago sociologists to the development of this discipline is self-evident. First of all, this contribution is reflected in that it laid the initial disciplinary and institutionalized foundation for sociology, a discipline bred in Europe for many years.

Although as early as 1839, the Frenchman Comte put forward the concept of "sociology" and put forward a complete idea for creating an empirical social science. In the following half century, many European thinkers, including Marx, Durkheim, Tanis, Weber and Zimmer, laid a complete foundation for the establishment of this discipline. However, due to the obstacles of knowledge background, discipline system and social ideology, sociology as a discipline has never found its place in European universities. Not only the deep-rooted tradition of classical philosophy and humanism in European society has become a knowledge barrier for the growth of sociology with distinctive experience and quality to a certain extent, but also the European academic system has not left much room and space for the development and survival of sociology, which can be seen from the personal experiences of the above-mentioned famous classic masters. Almost no one got the academic title of sociology professor before his death (even Durkheim, who was lucky, only got half the academic title of sociology professor and the other half was a professor of education), and most European sociologists basically engaged in their own research and teaching work outside the legal discipline system.

The establishment of Chicago Sociology Department and the emergence of Chicago Sociology School have changed the above embarrassment of European sociology. Due to the rapid urbanization and industrialization experienced by American society from 65438+ 1960 to the beginning of the 20th century, and the increasing immigration, urban and labor problems that followed, a powerful social reform movement with a broad group base emerged, which constituted a high demand for higher education. 1876 The American higher education revolution, which started from Johns Hopkins University, not only improved the academic quality, but also made American universities expand unprecedentedly in scale and quantity, making it possible for many emerging disciplines, including sociology, to enter universities. However, although many American universities, such as Columbia University, University of Kansas, University of Michigan, Yale University and Brown University, also made many contributions to the introduction of sociology into the United States at the end of 19, they can't be compared with Chicago in the sense of discipline. Chicago established the first sociology department, the first sociology magazine and the first sociology society ... These first and most important contributions are that they found a real foothold for sociology. Its significance is absolutely no less than Comte's giving this subject a brand-new name.

The second contribution of Chicago sociology is to really begin to endow sociology with the quality of experience and practice. This tendency changed the speculation and theoretical preference of European sociology, and made Comte's thought truly become a practical practice. This quality is actually closely related to the scene of American society at the end of 19, which determines that sociology, like many other emerging social sciences, has gained its academic home because of its political and practical themes, which is completely different from Europe. Take Thomas and Parker for example. The former's American Farmers in Europe and Poland can be called "the first great classic work of American empirical sociology" and "a symbolic example of anti-armchair sociology". The empirical quality of Parker's sociology is not only reflected in his research on blacks and Chicago community, but also in his determination of student research fields: 7-8 of his students have won Rockefeller local community scholarships, and their research object is Chicago, a rapidly developing industrial city.

Like the contribution of Chicago School, its limitations are obvious. The first limitation is determined by the congenital deficiency of the first generation of American sociologists. In other words, in a strict sense, although compared with their European counterparts, Chicago scholars, including Small and Parker, were fortunate enough to win the academic title of sociology professor, like other American sociology professors at the same time, almost no one received orthodox sociological training: Small used to teach theology, but his doctorate was welfare economics; Farris was a missionary first, and then trained in psychology. Parker himself is a philosopher and journalist ... These pioneers in Chicago are not so much sociologists as social reformers with a strong sense of justice. This congenital deficiency almost determined the fate of Chicago sociology being replaced by Harvard and Columbia sociology with more discipline from the very beginning.

The second restriction seems to be determined by the first restriction. It is precisely because of the non-disciplinary characteristics of Chicago sociologists that they lack in theory and method. Theoretically, although there is an outsider like george meade in the Chicago School of Sociology, due to the above-mentioned social background of the rise of American sociology, "American sociology represented by Chicago attaches great importance to' social problems' rather than developing and verifying explanatory theories". Even if Chicago sociologists like Small and Parker are interested in theory, their interest is only focused on a less rigorous system like Zimmer. It is conceivable that after 1937, the Chicago School will naturally be unbearable to the theoretical offensive launched by Parsons. Besides theoretical problems, the defects of Chicago School in research methods and methodology cannot be concealed. Not only has Chicago sociology always had a natural rejection of quantitative research methods, but qualitative ethnographic methods are also very rough in the early days, and some of them are even no different from simple social reports. Although William OG, who believes in "Sociology of Science", came to Chicago after 1927, this tendency has changed, and students who are almost obsessed with statistical technology like Christopher have been trained, but the incompatibility between quantitative and qualitative methods has also developed to the extreme. At seminars and luncheons, there are often arguments between statistics and case study methods. Naturally, this model can't resist the challenges from Harvard and Colombia, where the academic wrestling of Parsons and Stoff, Merton and Radas Feld's theories and methods is really invincible for some time.

The last limitation may be related to the academic inbreeding of Chicago School. Because of Chicago's unique position in American sociology before 1930s, it not only contributed a lot of teachers to the sociology department of American universities, but also retained new teachers, who were often doctors trained in the department. Although the homogenization of teachers' academic qualifications is conducive to the maintenance of the school, the lack of diversity and the loss of comprehensive vitality are the prices it must pay. In addition, due to the continuous retention of new teachers from the department, and each teacher has one or more connections with one or more professors in the department, the discord between teachers has deepened. In this way, as Bhutani said, some organizational failure caused by succession problems accelerated the end of Chicago's prominent position.

It should be noted that the Chicago School did not collapse immediately after its decline in the mid-1960s. In fact, after 1940s, under the banner of "symbolic interaction theory" developed from Meade's thought, the Department of Sociology of the University of Chicago also gathered a group of famous masters of post-war sociology, such as brummer, Everett Hughes, Howard Becker, erving goffman, David Riesman, etc. They continued to hold high the banner of Chicago in the nearly 20 years after the war, and were therefore called "the first". Just because sociology, including Harvard and Colombia, rules the world at the moment, the situation that Chicago dominated the world in the past is no longer beautiful.

Austrian school:

Austrian School is one of the most influential schools of economics in the 20th century. It was named Austrian School because most of its representatives came from Austria. In fact, his influence spread all over the world. From the development stage, it can be roughly divided into three periods. The first period was from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, represented by carl menger, Eugen Baum Pombavik and Friedrich von Wieser, among which Meng Le was recognized as the pioneer of the Austrian school, whose influence was mainly confined to Austria and Germany. The second stage was in the 1920s and 1940s, represented by ludwig von mises, friedrich hayek and joseph schumpete. During this period, the influence of Austrian School spread to Britain, America and other countries. The third period is from the 1970s to the present. During this period, the Austrian school really became an important school of economics in the world, and its influence has gone beyond the scope of economics, which has had a wide impact on political science, sociology and even the field of law. Its representative figures are muray rose Budd, israel Kozner, Ludwig Lachmann, Grid Odrix Sko, etc.

So I think the Austrian school has a greater influence now!