What Top Level Sociology Looks Like

I read the devastating review of Erik Olin's latest book, Envisaging Real Utopias. That motivated me to watch his video on his latest book, and it contains anecdotes supporting his vision of people working in the Marxist ideal: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". To highlight he's in the mainstream, here's Lane Kenworthy, a sociologist at the University of Arizona, arguing we need more welfare of all sorts. There's a simple, egalitarian theme to their findings. They give a good example of what top-level sociologists are doing

Olin notes Wikipedia is based on his ideals and works, ergo...I guess, why not have General Motors and Google run that way! He's a fan of neighborhood participatory budget assemblies, as local communities serve the commonweal without the inefficiency and duplicity of Washington. He didn't mention it, but as he's a good liberal (Marxist, actually) I'm sure he's against states' rights, or cutting state taxes to replace with local property taxes, and for all sorts of Federal regulations. See the PowerPoint slides here. I generally find the highly abstract, and parochial proofs in economics to generally be a waste of time, yet they are superior to theories presented as a flow chart.

He's the president of the American Sociological Society. I'm sure he's a smart, thoughtful guy. He's just worked himself into an intellectual cocoon where his silly talk seems respectable. As a 'scientist', he presumes his simple biases are actually fact-based, but he is so selective in his view of the data, it highlights that education mainly allows us to articulate our prejudices better. He highlights that one can be an intellectual, respected by one's peers, have an esteemed affiliation, and be totally clueless.