Search results

Today's artificial intelligence, largely based on data-intensive machine learning algorithms, relies heavily on the digital labour of invisibilized and precarized humans-in-the-loop who perform multiple functions of data preparation, verification of results, and even impersonation when algorithms fail. Using original quantitative and qualitative data, the present article shows that these workers are highly educated, engage significant (sometimes advanced) skills in their activity, and earnestly learn alongside machines. However, the loop is one in which human workers are at a disadvantage as they experience systematic misrecognition of the value of their competencies and of their contributions to technology, the economy, and ultimately society. This situation hinders negotiations with companies, shifts power away from workers, and challenges the traditional balancing role of the salary institution.

This article extends the economic-sociological concept of embeddedness to encompass not only social networks of, for example, friendship or kinship ties, but also economic networks of ownership and control relationships. Applying these ideas to the case of digital platform labour pinpoints two possible scenarios. When platforms take the role of market intermediaries, economic ties are thin and workers are left to their own devices, in a form of 'disembeddedness'. When platforms partake in intricate inter-firm outsourcing structures, economic ties envelop workers in a 'deep embeddedness' which involves both stronger constraints and higher rewards. With this added dimension, the notion of embeddedness becomes a compelling tool to describe the social structures that frame economic action, including the power imbalances that characterize digital labour in the global economy.

International audience ; The " public " dimension of sociological research can be seen as a form of reporting broadly interpreted, at the crossroads of scientific, political and ethical dimensions, and involving plural commitments to multiple actors. This article proposes a reflection based on the concrete experience of a survey of online communities of persons living with eating disorders. It discusses the importance of an ethical approach able to guide sociologists, as they face often difficult trade-offs between the need to produce new knowledge and the dilemmas that arise from their being part of the very world which they study, and on which their findings can have an impact. ; La dimensión «pública» de la investigación sociológica puede ser vista como una forma de reporte, interpretado de forma general: con un marco científico, político y ético, y con una pluralidad de compromisos hacia diversos actores. Este artículo propone una reflexión basada en una investigación sobre las comunidades virtuales de personas con trastornos de alimentación. El artículo muestra la importancia de un enfoque ético al momento de guiar a los sociólogos en su toma de decisiones, a veces difíciles, que dependen de la necesidad de producir conocimiento y de los dilemas planteados por su inserción en el contexto estudiado (el cual podría verse afectado por los resultados de la investigación). ; Les tensions entre sociologie et politique à l'aune d'une tentative de législation des sites web sur les troubles alimentaires Résumé La dimension « publique » de la recherche sociologique peut être vue comme une forme de restitution au sens large, s'inscrivant au carrefour d'enjeux scientifiques, politiques et éthiques, avec des engagements pluriels envers une multiplicité d'acteurs. L'article engage une réflexion à partir d'une situation d'enquête concrète, portant sur les communautés en ligne des personnes concernées par des troubles des conduites alimentaires. Il fait apparaître l'importance d'une visée éthique, guidant les sociologues ...

International audience ; The " public " dimension of sociological research can be seen as a form of reporting broadly interpreted, at the crossroads of scientific, political and ethical dimensions, and involving plural commitments to multiple actors. This article proposes a reflection based on the concrete experience of a survey of online communities of persons living with eating disorders. It discusses the importance of an ethical approach able to guide sociologists, as they face often difficult trade-offs between the need to produce new knowledge and the dilemmas that arise from their being part of the very world which they study, and on which their findings can have an impact. ; La dimensión «pública» de la investigación sociológica puede ser vista como una forma de reporte, interpretado de forma general: con un marco científico, político y ético, y con una pluralidad de compromisos hacia diversos actores. Este artículo propone una reflexión basada en una investigación sobre las comunidades virtuales de personas con trastornos de alimentación. El artículo muestra la importancia de un enfoque ético al momento de guiar a los sociólogos en su toma de decisiones, a veces difíciles, que dependen de la necesidad de producir conocimiento y de los dilemas planteados por su inserción en el contexto estudiado (el cual podría verse afectado por los resultados de la investigación). ; Les tensions entre sociologie et politique à l'aune d'une tentative de législation des sites web sur les troubles alimentaires Résumé La dimension « publique » de la recherche sociologique peut être vue comme une forme de restitution au sens large, s'inscrivant au carrefour d'enjeux scientifiques, politiques et éthiques, avec des engagements pluriels envers une multiplicité d'acteurs. L'article engage une réflexion à partir d'une situation d'enquête concrète, portant sur les communautés en ligne des personnes concernées par des troubles des conduites alimentaires. Il fait apparaître l'importance d'une visée éthique, guidant les sociologues dans l'arbitrage parfois difficile entre les exigences propres à la production de savoir et les dilemmes qui surgissent par leur insertion dans le monde qu'ils étudient, et sur lequel leurs résultats peuvent exercer un effet.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen edited the English translation of Hermann Heinrich Gossen's 1854 book The Laws of Human Relations and wrote a lengthy introduction to it. His highly appreciative, thoroughly documented study has become a major reference on an otherwise little-known early writer. It suggests that Gossen was unjustly ignored by his contemporaries, just as Georgescu-Roegen felt that his own contributions to economics were insufficiently recognized. Yet it was not only a personal motive that inspired Georgescu-Roegen's editorial enterprise: I show that his original plan was to build a model of consumer choice, drawing on Gossen, to address what he saw as essential theoretical issues. The completion of the book project took almost twenty years (it was not published until 1983), during which external circumstances and analytical difficulties gradually eroded the initial theoretical interests, while a sense of self-identification with Gossen gained prominence. As a result, major issues remained ultimately unsolved. The history of economics, originally intended to aid economic theory-building, became the key for sublimating personal feelings into a broader reflection on science in society, beyond time and space differences.

Last June, a group of Italian MPs proposed jail terms and fines for authors of so-called "pro-ana" (anorexia) and "pro-mia" (bulimia) websites. These are self-styled online communities on eating disorders which are viewed as promoting extreme dieting and unhealthy eating practices. France and the United Kingdom preceded Italy's attempt to pass restrictive legislation as far back as 2008-9, and many internet service providers also endeavoured to ban these contents.

International audience ; The chapter provides an overview of the main areas of research in history of economic thought, that correspond to a classic division of phases of development of the economics discipline from its origins to its present state. Following the Journal of Economic Literature classification, the evolution of economics is subdivided into two phases—namely, history of economic thought through 1925 and since 1925; a shorter third part on recent developments is added to this basic scheme. Focus is on what each period contributed to the study of three foundational issues in economics, namely, the theory of individual economic behavior, the market mechanism as a coordinating device, and the respective roles of markets and governments in the regulation of economic systems. Reflection on these issues has progressively formed economists' understanding of society and has then been extended to a broad range of social phenomena, from monetary and financial matters to health and the environment. These very issues have been the object of major controversies that have divided economists into different schools and have ultimately shaped the history of the discipline. In outlining these developments, similarities and differences between past and present theories are emphasized.

International audience ; The chapter provides an overview of the main areas of research in history of economic thought, that correspond to a classic division of phases of development of the economics discipline from its origins to its present state. Following the Journal of Economic Literature classification, the evolution of economics is subdivided into two phases—namely, history of economic thought through 1925 and since 1925; a shorter third part on recent developments is added to this basic scheme. Focus is on what each period contributed to the study of three foundational issues in economics, namely, the theory of individual economic behavior, the market mechanism as a coordinating device, and the respective roles of markets and governments in the regulation of economic systems. Reflection on these issues has progressively formed economists' understanding of society and has then been extended to a broad range of social phenomena, from monetary and financial matters to health and the environment. These very issues have been the object of major controversies that have divided economists into different schools and have ultimately shaped the history of the discipline. In outlining these developments, similarities and differences between past and present theories are emphasized.

International audience ; The chapter provides an overview of the main areas of research in history of economic thought, that correspond to a classic division of phases of development of the economics discipline from its origins to its present state. Following the Journal of Economic Literature classification, the evolution of economics is subdivided into two phases—namely, history of economic thought through 1925 and since 1925; a shorter third part on recent developments is added to this basic scheme. Focus is on what each period contributed to the study of three foundational issues in economics, namely, the theory of individual economic behavior, the market mechanism as a coordinating device, and the respective roles of markets and governments in the regulation of economic systems. Reflection on these issues has progressively formed economists' understanding of society and has then been extended to a broad range of social phenomena, from monetary and financial matters to health and the environment. These very issues have been the object of major controversies that have divided economists into different schools and have ultimately shaped the history of the discipline. In outlining these developments, similarities and differences between past and present theories are emphasized.

Résumé L'article présente la théorie de la répartition du revenu de Johann Heinrich von Thünen (1850), en exposant les hypothèses, les objectifs et les implications des quatre démonstrations mathématiques qu'il propose pour justifier sa solution (la célèbre formule du "salaire naturel" ). Celle-ci est interprétée comme l'issue de l'effort de l'auteur de mettre au point un schéma général d'optimisation individuelle à l'aide du calcul différentiel, et de comprendre comment des résultats sociaux découlent de la recherche du maximum de chacun. Sur cette base, l'influence des mathématiques sur la construction de la théorie économique de Thünen est mise en relief.

In eighteenth-century Italy a number of interesting efforts were made to apply mathematical methods to economic analysis. Scholars living in the Milan area were especially keen on mathematizing economic issues. R. D. Theocharis identified a common current of thought, which he called the Milanese School, in his pioneering research on early mathematical economics (Theocharis 1983, p. 2).