Re: individualism vs holism.

["Colin Danby" <danbyc@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Alan for these clarifications.  A couple of further questions.

1. Wouldn't Walrasian GE count as atomistic?

2. We may want to sort out what folks mean by "socially embedded."  (Since
to the extent that you're right that few defend atomism, few baldly deny
embeddedness if that's its opposite.)  Some of the implied meanings for
"socially embedded" that I've heard are: (a) Individuals exist against a
kind of shared cultural background that informs preferences.  (b)
Individuals have available to them only a limited variety of institutions
through which to accomplish what they want (a notion of social constraint).
(c) Individuals act in a context of specific social relationships to other
acting individuals.  Only (c) I think points toward MH, in the sense that
something like financial fragility or matriliny only makes sense if one
examines the ongoing interactions of a number of differently-placed actors.

3. Continuing that point, do you posit too large a gap between
individualistic explanations and those which make *no* reference to
constituent individuals?  Your Boyle's Law analogy has limits, as the
interactions between molecules in an ideal gas are not terribly interesting
or varied -- they are not marrying each other, enslaving each other,
evangelizing each other, cornering markets, organizing political parties,
and so forth.  If one starts with a social ontology in which individuals
make and remake social structure (sort of along Giddens' notions of
structuration), structure that contains personalistic (and most often
inegalitarian) links, then we need explanations that are neither wholly
aggregate nor wholly individual.  Indeed in a Giddensian world we lose a
stark separation between individual and institution, especially if we think
diachronically.

Take financial fragility.  Operationalizing this concept in a particular
context requires institutional analysis in which very particular relations
between differently-placed individuals and institutions become important.

Best, Colin