Overcoming Aprocessual Bias in the Study of Inequality: Parsing the Capitalist Interaction Order

Abstract

If what sociologists call “social structures” are understood to be recurrent patterns of joint action, then the charge that interactionism suffers from an astructural bias falls apart, because such patterns of joint action are what interactionists routinely study. The problem, then, is not that interactionism fails to grasp structure, but that much of the mainstream of sociology fails to grasp process. It is this aprocessual bias that impedes a full understanding of how inequality is created and reproduced. The case of capitalism is used to show how an interactionist focus on process can illuminate the workings of a large-scale economic system. I treat capitalism as a macro interaction order, à la Goffman, and then employ the tools of dramaturgical sociology to analyze the recurrent patterns of joint action of which capitalism consists. This form of dramaturgical analysis is applied to two fictional stories as a way to show how capitalism depends on normative and procedural rules, cognitive presuppositions, and ritual forms – all of which are typically rendered invisible by aprocessual bias. The concepts of side bets, identity stakes, and nets of accountability are developed to complete the analysis.

Citation

Schwalbe, M. (2016), "Overcoming Aprocessual Bias in the Study of Inequality: Parsing the Capitalist Interaction Order", The Astructural Bias Charge: Myth or Reality? (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 46), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 95-122. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-239620160000046032