The Social Lens: Insights on Institutions, Inequality, and Innovation

Sugar is one of the central elements of the global food basket, but its widespread consumption is a relatively recent phenomenon. While the idea of sweetness has existed since ancient times, its transformation into a necessity reflects the evolving meanings associated with sugar, as well as shifts in economic and social conditions. It is worth exploring how sugar became a staple across all social classes. Yet, this inquiry is not merely about sugar as a material object but rather about the essence of sweetness in the social world. Taste is socially determined. While physiological factors, such as the body’s need for certain minerals, play a role in shaping preferences, the availability of multiple food items with similar tastes makes the popularity of certain foods a historical and anthropological question. From a historical perspective, changing patterns of food consumption reflect broader cultural transformations. Anthropology, on the other hand, examines how these shifts perm...

The Industrial Revolution in England provided the foundation for the effective development and application of science in the realm of production. This transformation occurred in both harmony and contradiction with various forms of social change and the evolving social roles of labor in European societies. The nature of production began to shift, assigning new roles to individuals within these societies. The dominant economic system of the time, the 'feudal mode of production,' started to decline and was ultimately dismantled with the rise of industrialization. The population's reliance on land-based livelihoods, primarily agriculture, was supplanted by an industrial mode of production. This transformation was not an isolated phenomenon; it was reinforced by other factors that spurred the growth of industrialization and a new 'market' system, which enhanced purchasing power and altered consumption behavior. These early developments in capitalism were primarily influ...

This book was written at the end of the “age of revolution”. European society was witnessing unprecedented success at its disposal as the industrial production reached astronomical figures, cities grown gigantically, the population was more than any epoch, and the scientific achievements were prodigious.  It was the age, when Prof. Wheatstone of London was planning to connect England with France through submarine electric telegraph. The publication of books in England, USA, France and Germany alone reached in five figures. Millions of people for transport used railway line and means of communication were improving at flashing speed. This was the epoch of the romantic idea of progress. I use the word ‘romantic’ to show the perpetual denial of the existence of ugliest, unhappiest, grim and stinking world parallel to the romantic microcosm of technological and social progress. Engle and Marx, in this work, destroyed the veneer of European civilisation to present an idea, where the r...

The oriental and occidental philosophies, in the ancient age, were more concerned about the knowledge of self. The concept of dualism, monism and various other abstract notions of life-world showed various ways to attain the knowledge of self and the meaning of ‘existence’. Socrates says, “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge”. He says that self-introspection is the most important thing and we should start with the dictum “I don’t know”. The theories in social sciences also talked about subjectivity of truth and reality. The initial view that the notion of consciousness and self cannot be deciphered. These views were contested in the field of neurology and cognitive sciences. The theory about outer world came in the epidemiological foundations of various disciplines. Various disciplines started talking about the role of emotions, feeling and so on for in societal context. The concept of social embeddedness of ‘self’ came into existence. Th...