The Role Of The Economy In America

Throughout time, many people have come to the conclusion that in order to have a prosperous nation, the economy is the driving force of society. With this mentality, many people believe that money leads to wealth and wealth leads to more opportunities to succeed. When looking at the grand scheme of life, the economy plays a big factor in America’s ability to be one of the most powerful countries in the world. Even though the economy is a major role in prosperity, the idea that sociology, the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society, could potentially impact a country in a more positive light than the economy, has been posed as a possible alternative. An article from The New York Times, “What if Sociologists Had …show more content…
Functionalism, the theory that various social institutions and processes in society exist to serve some important function to keep society running, is portrayed by Irwin throughout this article (Conley 28),. Combining different specialty fields would allow for a more fluid society, in comparison to a rigid society displayed by the economists. With the combination of these two branches, ideas from both groups could contribute to a better social outcome, which is something that the author believes in. He feels that today's societies are more heavily weighed on that of economists since most societies attribute their stability to a strong and stable economy. But in fact, incorporating sociologists into the minutia of societal development and sustainability, could result in a better …show more content…
The ideology of combining two different outlooks could help provide new insight on how to solve a problem in which they never thought of before. I definitely agree with Irwin in the fact that we should incorporate more sociologists since their knowledge on societal functions would greatly improve the societal interactions, which would ultimately improve homology of a nation. By addressing the aforementioned points in the article about how sociologists could improve the society, I believe that integrating both branches will benefit the society as a whole. I believe that if he expanded his ideology of functionalism or incorporate more of a plan on what sociologists would do, I feel that the overall outcome of this article would have been more powerful. For example, if he used statistics to show the decrease of depression, drug addiction, and premature death rates due to the incorporation of sociologists, I believe it would have made a more compelling argument as it would be giving facts to how the sociologists improved the society overall. All in all, giving sociologists the same influence that economists would greatly improve the society that we live in