SER on Tap

Episode 8: Toward a Cultural Sociology of Taxation, with Ruth Braunstein

Ruth Braunstein (University of Connecticut) talks with us about her article, "Toward a cultural sociology of taxation," which brings a relational sociology approach to bear on a subject that is typically the preserve of fiscal sociology. In this episode, we discuss scaling up relational economic sociology, battles over framing debates on taxation, and how all this overlaps with the sociology of religion.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwae017

Episode 7: Small Money, Large Profits, with Barbara Brandl

Barbara Brandl (Goethe University Frankfurt) speaks with us about the article she co-authored alongside David Hengsbach and Guadalupe Moreno, titled "Small money, large profits: how the cashless revolution aggravates social inequality." We discuss the Global North's gradual replacement of public infrastructure with private infrastructure and the resulting potential to aggravate social inequality.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad071

Episode 6: The Dual Economy, Climate Change, and Political Polarization, with Thomas Oatley

Thomas Oatley (Tulane University) talks with us about his article, "The dual economy, climate change, and the polarization of American politics," which illustrates how the knowledge economy and the carbon economy are at odds with one another, and how this polarizes contemporary American politics.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad052

Episode 5: Varieties of Wealth, with Jens Beckert

Jens Beckert (MPIfG) talks with us about his article “Varieties of wealth: toward a comparative sociology of wealth inequality,” which examines two cases of high-wealth inequality to illustrate how different aspects of wealth can be more important, more powerful, or more tolerable according to institutional and cultural contexts.
https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/22/2/475/7497086

Episode 4: Rival Views of Economic Competition, with Timur Ergen and Sebastian Kohl

Timur Ergen (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies) and Sebastian Kohl(Free University Berlin)speak with us about their article, "Rival views of economic competition," which schematizes moral arguments made in regard to economic competition so as to open a systematic ethical debate on the matter.

Episode 3: The Hunt for Red Flags, with Steve McDonald, Amanda Damarin, and Scott Grether

Steve McDonald (North Carolina State University), Amanda Damarin (Georgia State University), and Scott Grether (Longwood University) discuss their article “The hunt for red flags: cybervetting as morally performative practice,” which examines the wildly freeform and morally as well as practically dubious exercise of "cybervetting".

Episode 2: Jonathan Mijs

Jonathan Mijs (Boston University) discusses his article “The paradox of inequality: income inequality and belief in meritocracy go hand in hand,” which explores the baffling paradox by which countries faced with growing inequality experience less popular concern regarding inequality than do more egalitarian nations.

Episode 1: David Hope and Julian Limberg

David Hope (King’s College London) and Julian Limberg (King’s College London) discuss their article “The Economic Consequences of Major Tax Cuts for the Rich”. The article considers the dramatic decline in taxes on the rich across advanced democracies over the past 50 years and seeks to estimate the average effects of major tax reforms on income inequality, economic growth, and unemployment.